Can you really get more accomplished by multi-tasking?

Are you getting more accomplished when you multi-task?  One might thinks so at first, but with more consideration it has been found that it isn’t true, especially when dealing with electronic media.

Those who constantly deal with multiple simultaneous inputs do not pay attention as well, their memory is not as sharp, and their ability to switch from one task to another quickly is not as accomplished as those who prefer to ‘single task’.

High tech multi-taskers are commonplace these days, with email, text messaging, cell phone, and the internet on those cell phones.  One wonders how they keep all that bouncing around in their head in some kind of order.  But if you are constantly trying to take in everything that’s coming at you, how do you organized it and make it useful?

For example, you’re writing an email, the phone rings, you talk to that person for a few minutes, they send you an email to check out, or refer you to a web page, you go check it out, that reminds you to call somebody else, you get a text message from your child about picking them up at school at a different time, you check your calendar, oops you’ll have to rearrange something else, you make that call.  All of this whilst working on one email.  Email, what email?!  Oh, that email.  Now what were you saying?

Unfortunately this may have become the norm for many of us.  To much to do.  To little time to do it in.  So we try to jam it all into the same time frame.  Like trying to stuff a ten pound turkey into a 5 pound bag.

Social scientist have long thought that the brain can only process one string of relevant data at a time.  And now they are finding out that its true.  They are finding out that those we consider multi-taskers are paying a significant price for trying to do so much at the same time.

It has been found that multi-taskers have a hard time determining what is relevant and what isn’t.  They are less able to block out inputs that are really irrelevant.  And this leads to a higher susceptibility to distractions.  And distractions are never a good thing.

It has also been found that multi-taskers don’t have a better memory than those to don’t multi-task.  With so many  things going on at the same time, its hard for one’s brain to sort, organize, and store bits of data.  Thereby making it more difficult to recall the data.

Researchers have also discovered that multi-taskers really don’t do well at switching back and forth from one task or process to another.  They tend to have difficulty in leaving the previous task behind and committing their full concentration on the new task or process.

“But computers multi-task, and our brains are more adept than computers.”  That’s not completely true that a computer multi-tasks.  In a single processor computer, it does one thing at a time, then switches to another, then to another, then back to a prior process, then to a new process, ad infinitum.  

The computer switches back and forth at incredible speeds, it only appears to be working on multiple items at the same time.  And when leaving one process to work on another, it stores the first process in a orderly fashion, at a precise location, and then remembers where it is stored for recall later.  Something we have a hard time doing.  

In summary the research seems to be pointing to a failure to filter.  The multi-taskers are trying to take in so many streams of input, that the irrelevant, unimportant, and distracting bits are not being filtered out.  And that failure to filter out the unnecessary inputs is slowing them down.

So how can we make use of this information and apply it to our own lives.  Obviously one way is to limit our input streams.  Simplify the space around us.  Become more aware of what is coming at us, and what we really need to pay attention to.

Another way to make use of this information is to apply it to what we concentrate on.  Just as to many inputs can disrupt what we get accomplished, so can concentrating on to many tasks or processes at the same time diminish our accomplishments.  

Here’s a mental test for you.  Take two books on different topics and read the introductions – but alternate paragraphs from the two books.  One paragraph from the first book, then a paragraph from the second, then back to the next paragraph from the first book again.  Keep flipping back and forth paragraph by paragraph.

Do I even have to ask about how much you would retain from that reading?  Or how about efficiency, regardless of what you retained, it would probably take you longer to read the two passages that way than if you read one in its entirety, and then the other.

Would you be able to make use of anything that you read that way?  I know I wouldn’t be able to.  Plus, it would probably leave me with a headache.

Now, trying to read two books that way is not how we usually go about reading two books, its just common sense.  But how often do we attempt something similar with our day to day work tasks.  We flip flop back and forth between different tasks, and then wonder why we’re not getting anything done.

So what should you do if you want to get more accomplished.  

One is to limit your inputs.  Does that ringing phone have to be answered?  How many times do I have to check my email per day, or per hour?  Does that TV have to be on?

Two is to limit what you spend your concentration on.

Let’s say you only have a dollars worth of concentration available at any time.  Now if I start to try and work on multiple tasks at the same time, and spread that dollars worth of concentration all around, then each task will only get so many cents worth of concentration.  Lets say each of four tasks get 25 cents of concentration.  

But what if I need to write a 75 cent email.  There are two options.  One is to write a 25 cent email, that’s basically worthless.  Or stop some other tasks and give the email the full 75 cents worth of concentration that it deserves.  

Spreading your dollars worth of concentration around to thinly creates shoddy work.  It also short changes those you deal with, and the tasks that you are working on.  If you want more valuable accomplishments, then spend more of that dollars worth of concentration on just that task.  And in the long run you will get more tasks done, and they will have a higher level of quality.