The Price of MultiTasking

Seems a Stanford
University psychology professor noticed a lot of people
multi-tasking, something that he understood to be impossible because of
how our brains function. And yet, here were people all around him,
talking on cell-phones while surfing the web and
carrying on a conversation across the table and….

You get the picture. You've probably done it yourself. More than once.

So the professor and his pals got curious. How could this be happening? Were our brains being re-wired by technology? Was this another step in our development as human beings?

To find some answers, he and his students created a series of simple tests. What they discovered was fascinating and went completely
opposite to what you may have expected.

It seems that people
who are HMM (heavy media multitasker in research jargon do not pay
attention, cannot control their memory and cannot switch easily from one
job to another as adeptly as people who concentrate on one job
at a time.

Basically we're assaulting our brain with so much information that it becomes overloaded and can't cope. We lose the ability to filter out the unimportant and irrelevant.

Can you spell s-t-r-e-s-s?

"High multitaskers can't keep things separate in their minds."

Is it any wonder we feel  'information overload'? The remedy?

"Try
to do less," Professor Ophir said, which is something that he does in his own
life. "You can check your e-mail,
but make sure you have periods of focus. Cut to your calendar later."

We think we're being more productive when in reality, we're not.

As my own little experiment, I tried single tasking this week. It's a skill I have to re-learn so there were a lot of false starts and stops. First, I made a list of things I needed to accomplish and then went through the list ONE THING AT A TIME. What I found was this -
I got more accomplished and I FELT that accomplishment. I lost the uneasy feeling that I was dropping the ball somewhere.

I challenge you to give it a try this week.

If you want to read more about the study click here. It's fascinating! (You might want to send the link to your boss, too. )

 

The Myth of Multi-Tasking

As women we do manage to get a lot done in a day. And I don't think anyone can multi-task like a young mother – bouncing a fussy baby on one hip while cooking supper and talking to the boss the phone, all the while keeping an eye on the toddler who is trying to kiss the dog. 

 

But there is a price to be paid for that scattered focus. Your life rushes by and you simply don't remember it! A friend told me about checking her tub one evening to see if it was wet because she couldn't recall if she'd showered!

 

Now THAT'S busy.

 

Here's the truth about multi-tasking. It's biologically impossible for your brain to hold more than one thought at a time. You might think you're being productive but you're not. Not really. And you're certainly not being effective – not when you can't remember what you've done.

 

It's vital that you take some quiet time each day to let your brain rest. Then when you're ready to take on a task, put your entire attention into what you're doing. Stay focused, and in the time you've allotted you'll get more done.