Recommendation
People try to multitask to accomplish the many jobs that confront them every day. But multitasking just doesn’t work. In fact, it adds to the time it takes to complete complex tasks. You will do much better if you handle tasks sequentially, one-by-one, and not simultaneously – which is actually impossible. Multitasking is symptomatic of larger societal problems, including alienation, the devaluation of human experience and meaningless relationships according to Devora Zack, a consultant and practitioner of neurolinguistic programming. She explodes the “multitasking myth” and offers a practical alternative – “singletasking” – focusing on one chore at a time – as the way to work and live with greater efficiency and production. Zack lives the sort of frenetic life that seems to demand multitasking, but instead she singletasks successfully. If you are trying to do too much, all at once, getAbstract recommends her fresh alternative to multitasking.
Take-Aways
- The “Singletasking Principle” is: “Get more done, one thing at a time.”
- Science has proven that multitasking doesn’t work. Your brain can focus on only one single challenging task at a time.
- When people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually “task-switching” – that is, moving inefficiently back and forth between tasks.
- When you task-switch, each separate chore takes longer to do than it should.
- Multitasking impedes cognition. It makes you less productive and more mistake-prone.
- For greater productivity, try “singletasking”: Handle one task at a time.
- Singletasking dissipates “stress, pressure, self-doubt, boredom and distraction.”
- Singletasking has been humanity’s de facto approach to getting things done since hunter-gatherer days. Now people must learn again how to do it.
- With singletasking, you are “setting your own agenda.”
- It gives you control of your mental processes, and helps you manage your environment – including your devices.
Summary
Multitasking Scenarios
Multitasking scenario number one: Your most important client is on the speakerphone. You lean back in your chair, your eyes intent on your computer screen. As she talks to you about her business, you see an instant message roll across your computer screen. Some co-workers are going to lunch at a nearby Thai restaurant. Can they pick up anything for you?
“By immersing yourself in one task at a time, one moment at a time, you’ll accomplish more while enjoying deeper, stronger relationships.”
Pleased, you type in your order. While you’re thinking about pad Thai, your client, who kept speaking while you were planning lunch, interrupts your meanderings by asking, “Do you agree with that strategy?” What strategy? You have no idea what your client is talking about. Your mind has been on Thai cuisine, not business strategy. Maybe you should’ve focused on your job and not your lunch.
“Multitasking is misleading. Rather than mitigating demands, it magnifies our problems. Our brains are incapable of honing in on more than one item at a time.”
Multitasking scenario number two: You have a big, immediate, all-consuming problem and you need your boss’s counsel to solve it. You schedule a meeting to discuss the issue. During this get-together, while you carefully explain the problem, your boss constantly multitasks: tidying the desk, sending an instant message, rounding up reports and folders for an upcoming meeting, and otherwise signaling to you that your problem – and you – are not that important. At the end of your “conversation,” the boss tells you to feel free to drop by any time to discuss the problem further. No thanks.
Multitasking Doesn’t Work
Multitasking is a deeply ingrained component of modern culture. People seem busier than ever. They work all the time, but often don’t feel a sense of accomplishment. To handle myriad responsibilities, they turn to multitasking. For many, multitasking is the de facto response to life’s extreme busyness. Doing several things at once seems essential in contemporary society, particularly in the face of a constant barrage of distracting media messages. Meanwhile, enormous to-do lists never seem to get shorter. They just get longer.
“Focusing on someone for a few minutes is far more productive than conducting an hour-long ‘coaching’ session while simultaneously doing several other tasks.”
Originally a computer term, multitasking now refers to the “handling of more than one task at the same time by a single person.” Unfortunately, “neuroscience, globally conducted research and cross-disciplinary studies” show that multitasking doesn’t work. Your brain can’t handle two challenging tasks simultaneously. However, most people don’t want to give up multitasking and many can’t imagine being able to function without it.
“The inability to concentrate on another person when being introduced or holding a conversation is evidence of an undisciplined cerebellum.”
The common perception is that multitasking is a recipe for success. In truth, it guarantees mistakes – sometimes dangerous or even deadly ones. For example, consider texting while driving. This potentially cataclysmic form of multitasking often results in horrible automobile accidents. In the US, “distracted driving kills tens of thousands of people each year” and costs $871 billion annually.
“Multitasking weakens our ability to concentrate. We are collectively losing the ability to sustain prolonged attention.”
The results of most multitasking failures are less drastic, but still problematic. Maybe you were reading the newspaper while you discussed an important project with a co-worker and you find out later that you inadvertently agreed to a deadline that falls well before completing the project will be humanly possible. Or you chat with your wife about family schedules while focusing on NFL Live, and later you plan a business meeting that conflicts with your father-in-law’s birthday.
“Regardless of the proclaimed reason, trying to multitask can convey arrogance, disrespect, disorganization and disinterest.”
When you multitask, you give “superficial, simultaneous attention to competing streams of information.” That won’t work. Because multitasking is inefficient, it doesn’t mitigate your time management problems. Multitasking always adds to the time a task consumes. It impedes the “flow of information into short-term memory,” so you can’t recall key information later. That leaves you trying to complete a task while depending on lost information that you must secure all over again. Thus, multitasking makes each task take longer than it would if you focused on it exclusively in the first place.
Multitasking Is a Fantasy
Although many people swear by it, multitasking doesn’t actually happen. The science of neurology proves that multitasking isn’t possible. Any challenging task involves the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Having multiple information streams from two focus-demanding tasks competing for the prefrontal cortex overworks and overwhelms the brain. MIT’s Dr. Earl Miller says people can’t focus on two jobs at one time due to “interference between the two tasks.”
“Scanning a screen has largely replaced reading a page, yielding shallow learning and poor retention.”
The process that people mistakenly refer to as multitasking is actually “task-switching” – that is, “moving rapidly and ineffectively among tasks.” Task-switching occurs within tenths of a second.
Although multitasking is an illusion, including its illusory benefits, it does stir up some real-world – and decidedly negative – effects. Multitasking actually “shrinks the brain.” The prefrontal cortex reduces in size due to the routine mental overload of multitasking. Less brain matter results in cognitive impairment and a decreased ability to think and reason clearly.
“It is all too easy to replace inward examination with external distractions.”
Multitasking is bad for your brain in other ways, too. It impedes your ability to find solutions to problems, increases mood swings and interferes with the way you control urges. Buddhists speak of monkey mind, a mind that is unsettled and out of control. This is your mind when you multitask. A constantly confused and restless mindset is a natural by-product of multitasking.
Two at a Time
Don’t confuse attention-demanding tasks with mundane activities such as washing the dishes, listening to music, making easy repairs or cooking. These “automatic, low-level functions” put few demands on your attention. You can engage in these activities while attending to more complex mental tasks, if it makes sense physically or logistically. However, always be careful when you attempt to do two things at once. For example, walking while texting can have deleterious consequences. You could walk into a pothole, into traffic or into a ditch.
“The ever-expanding multimedia environment is just the latest excuse to avoid looking within.”
To understand the inherent flaw of multitasking, think about a time in the past when you were counting change or some other small items. Suddenly, you lost track of the count and had to start all over. Maybe this was due to an interruption or because your mind began to wander. Whatever the cause, your focus disappeared. You instantly became unproductive.
“Technology isn’t the problem. The way you handle it in your life is the crux of the matter.”
This happens with multitasking because it requires you to switch focus constantly. Harvard University research indicates that the most productive workers seldom switch focus during the day. The least productive workers “switch focus up to 500 times a day.” That’s multitasking at its worst and bespeaks the essence of “distracted, unfocused and scattered” lives.
“Using your phone while driving may seem safe, but it roughly quadruples your risk of being in a crash.” (Jake Nelson, AAA Director of Traffic Safety)
Some experts mistakenly believe that young people who grew up in the age of high-tech are completely comfortable with digital devices and are natural multitaskers. However, the brains of young people are similar to the brains of older people and they face the same limitations when it comes to multitasking. No one, young or old, is a natural multitasker; multitasking is simply not a human capability. Sophisticated computers can do it. People can’t.
“Singletasking”
The answer is singletasking: Focus on one job at a time. Singletasking will make you immediately more productive. Follow the succinct, direct singletasking principle, which says: “Get more done, one thing at a time.” Successful singletasking involves managing your thoughts, relationships and environment. Singletasking guarantees maximum focus and productivity – that is, “full task engagement.”
“Dedicating a mere three to five minutes at the start of each workday to organizing your to-do list can transform your entire day into one that is proactive rather than reactive.”
Singletasking is not new. It’s an activity as old as humankind. Hunter-gatherers were highly effective singletaskers. Their survival and the survival of their family members depended on singletasking. Throughout history, singletasking has been the customary state of mind of humans. This is because it works. Modern people need to reclaim this tried-and-true method.
“Singletasking means being here, now, immersing yourself in one thing at a time.”
Singletasking means immersing yourself totally in the task in front of you and then another and another. It doesn’t mean you must fully complete a task before moving on to the next. It means maintaining total focus on a single task while you are busy with it. You can use this “task immersion” strategy to achieve superior results on any chore.
Restoring Human Connection
Besides helping people become more productive, singletasking can rebuild relationships damaged by the modern tendency to fail to focus fully on those around you. Instead of concentrating on one another, most people constantly glance at their handheld digital devices, rudely accept calls during in-person conversations, and so on. When singletaskers engage with other people, they focus on their companions. In the process, singletaskers take control of their environments, their agendas and their mental processes. They are in charge of their lives. Their handheld devices don’t rule supreme.
In part, this involves deciding whether to respond to all of the stimuli around you, electronic and otherwise. Do you operate constantly at the beck and call of your devices? Do they make it impossible for you to focus – and thus to singletask? You must take command of them. However, you can’t assume control over your smartphone unless you first take charge of your mind. With all the distractions in your life, this may be a new idea, so start small and work up from there.
Begin by reserving time in your life for personal reflection: simple, unadorned, clear and helpful thinking. Create a journal and make regular entries about your thoughts. Journaling helps you focus on and organise your thinking. Consider this your “mindfulness practice.”
Instead of suffering from distracting monkey mind, which marks multitasking, you can benefit from the wonderful attributes that accompany singletasking: “energy and well-being, positivity and good humour,” as well as “contentment and fulfillment.” Additionally, singletasking dissipates “stress, pressure, insecurity, nervousness, boredom and distraction.”
Becoming a Singletasker
Heed these tips on how to introduce singletasking, focus on it and implement it.
- Singletasking is a habitual approach. Worthwhile singletasking activities include managing unplanned visitors, shutting off social media prompts, setting aside daily planning time, and maintaining focus during meetings and conversations.
- Singletasking requires focus, which requires energy. Replenish your vigor during the day by taking short breaks from work.
- Unplanned thoughts can deflect you from the focus you need to be able to singletask. When such thoughts occur, place them in a mental “parking lot” by writing them down for later review.
- When working on an important project, go offline so emails and electronic notices won’t sap your focus. Mute all your electronic devices and other “ringers, chimes and pings.”
- You can’t singletask amid constant interruptions. Alter people’s expectations about demanding your available time.
- When you’re focusing, let your colleagues know you are temporarily unavailable. Shut your door and post a note letting people know you’re on deadline.
- “Clustertasking” – grouping similar tasks together – works efficiently. Set aside two 30-minute periods daily for handling simple, low-level, but related chores as a clustertask.
- Pay respectful, focused attention to others. Become an active listener. Ignore social media when you are with someone else.
- As author Joseph Juran suggests, try to prioritise and focus on the “vital few” instead of the “trivial many.”
- Stop rushing. Slow down. You have all the time you need if you singletask wisely.
About the Author
The President of Only Connect Consulting, Devora Zack is a member of the visiting faculty for Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management.
getAbstract maintains complete editorial responsibility for all parts of this abstract. All rights reserved. No part of this abstract may be reproduced or transmitted or used for training any machine learning system in any form or by any means – electronic, photocopying or otherwise – without prior written permission of getAbstract AG (Switzerland).