The Multitasking Virus
For the record, I believe that multitasking is the biggest fraud we have deluded ourselves with.
Multitasking is the product of a busy culture that has convinced itself being mediocre at many things is more ‘productive’ than excelling at a few. This is exacerbated by our hyper connected society and the overuse of any communication medium (from person to person to IM). This is amplified by bosses who just assign you more and more each day.
Communication is key to all success and what I am not advocating is the cessation of communication. We absolutely must communicate. What I do advocate is controlling the amount and nature of the communication and ensure you have adequate disruption free time to get the real work done.
In some of my recent reading points made by Tim Ferris in Four Hour Work Week really resonated with me. There are cases in which "emergencies" can cease to happen the moment you execute control over how and when people contact you or you empower those people to handle situations they would normally come to you for. I think in most business Tim is absolutely correct. Very few businesses encounter major emergencies in day-to-day operations. Most emergencies involve people who need (or think they need) answers on items and don’t want to wait or don’t have the latitude to actually make a decision (or both).
What we’re contrasting here is efficiency and effectiveness. Being in IT I will address this from a pretty simple analogy. When I architect a system if I can make it process 100 requests at a time instead of just 1 I have made it efficient. But what happens if when I do that the time it takes to fulfill a request becomes so long that the data is of no use to the user? (I work with Law Enforcement so speed & accuracy of data is critical) In trying to be efficient – getting more done with the same amount of resources – I have just become ineffective. My system response is mediocre instead of great and in my situation I could actually jeopardize the safety of an officer or the public.
Multitasking is like that system. You are trying to do more with the same amount of attention, the same amount of hours in the day and you still believe you are just as effective? You may have answered those hundred emails but if that is all you did today did you really accomplish what you should have? Do you even know what you needed to accomplish or did you let your inbox turn into a to-do list?
I digress a little here but all of this is related – the amount of "messages" and number of mediums we communicate on, our ability to organize and execute what really needs to be done, and our ability to delegate tasks or acknowledge that some things are truly not important.
Strategies to kill the multitasking virus:
Know what you’re good at doing and focus on that (making sure it is vital to your organization!). If you’re not good at something and don’t have the time to be find someone who is and has the time – delegate or collaborate. Make sure people know what you’re good at and help them when they come to you for those skills.
Take control of your time. Unless you are an emergency first responder there are not that many true emergencies that you must drop everything for. Block off time for processing your email and voicemail. Use the 2-minute rule and a trusted system so you are responsive and do not lose issues that need your attention. Create distraction free time and really give things your full attention. When doing this as part of a team make sure the team understands and respects that and allow them the same courtesies.
Don’t let the "I can do it alls" make you feel guilty. I know people who are convinced multitasking is the only way to go. These same people are the ones I do not go to when I need specialized things taken care of because I know they will only give it 10-20% attention when it needs 100% (at least for a short-time). Shedding is a lesson I won’t lecture about in this post but it is related. Deciding you are not effective at things does not make you a failure. Sometimes to be most effective we have to give up things we aren’t good at. That is good common sense but somehow our multitasking infections make us feel rotten about it.
Be effective. Create your multitasking antidote and set an example for others. Results matter and when you are creating results while still holding the trust and respect of your team people will notice. They will also notice that your work stands above the eternal to-do list chasers.
Ask your boss what’s important. Not sure what you should really focus on? Ask. If your boss isn’t sure then he should ask his boss. If no one is sure that you should focus on something it can probably be dropped.
A few resources:
David Allen’s Getting Things Done – Best book I can recommend on being truly effective. Build your own GTD system and start eliminating items from your to-do list. See also Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero.
Tim Ferris and the Four Hour Work Week – A catchy title that you can take a lot out of even if you don’t outsource your personal assistants and disappear from the office. The book is about taking control of your life, your time, and your attention. The principles apply to cube-dwellers and world-traveling entrepreneurs alike.
Comments are closed.
