Multitasking Kills Productivity

Putting it bluntly, Psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell has gone so far as to describe multitasking as a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously as effectively as one.” 

In psychology, there is a phenomenon called “continuous partial attention” that occurs when multiple things are happening, but none of the events are studied in-depth. This is your brain’s way of coping with too much information by selectively deleting and focusing on specific things to make sense of an environment inundated with inputs.

A common example of this inattention to detail due to multitasking is apparent when people talk on cellphones while driving. One study found that having an accident is four times more likely when using a cell phone while driving. Even scarier, a 2006 study showed that drivers talking on cell phones were more involved in rear-end collisions and sped up slower than intoxicated drivers.
Don’t text or talk and drive folks!

If this happens when doing something as routine as driving, just imagine what happens when you bounce around between more complex and creative tasks.

Think quickly checking your email won’t do any harm? A 2014 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that interruptions as brief as two to three seconds — which is to say, less than the amount of time it would take you to toggle from this article to your email and back again — were enough to double the number of errors participants made in an assigned task.

The overall impact of multitasking is tough to quantify, and at first might, the productivity hit of individual diversions might seem small. However, the research shows a different outcome.

According to a summary of multitasking research citing experiments from Dr. David Meyer and his colleagues) at the University of Michigan:

Although switch costs may be relatively small, sometimes just a few tenths of a second per switch, they can add up to significant amounts when people repeatedly switch back and forth between tasks. Thus, multitasking may seem efficient on the surface but may actually take more time in the end and involve more error. Meyer has said that even short mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.

In Dr. Meyer’s own words:

“People in a work setting,” says Meyer, “who are banging away on word processors at the same time they have to answer phones and talk to their co-workers or bosses — they’re doing switches all the time. Not being able to concentrate for, say, tens of minutes at a time, may mean it’s costing a company as much as 20 to 40 percent” in terms of potential efficiency lost, or the “time cost” of switching, as these researchers call it.

“In effect,” says Meyer, “you’ve got writer’s block briefly as you go from one task to another. You’ve got to (a) want to switch tasks, you’ve got to (b) make the switch and then you’ve got to © get warmed back up on what you’re doing.

Did you catch that?

Multitasking is costing you, and your business, up to 40% in lost productivity!

The science and my own personal experience show that I do my best work when I have one clear thing that I can devote my time to at once, ideally for an entire day. At a minimum for 90 minutes time blocks.

If I have multiple long-term projects to work on, I can still get them done, but one is going to get the short end of the stick (which might be OK in a pinch, depending on the project). If both projects require my full attention, I’m better off eliminating one of them or deferring it until I can devote my entire focus to it. Worst case, I’ll dedicate as large a block of time as possible to each project, to minimize the pain of context switching.

While experts like Dr. Meyer do concede that you can train yourself to multitask better over time, they also conclude that there is a limit to how well it can be done and therefore, advise people to avoid multitasking if at all possible. There is also a difference between training yourself to juggle simple tasks vs. complex and creative ones. The former can be trained. The later is much more challenging (if not impossible).

Problem: The World Wants To Steal Your Attention

In spite of the fact that we are living in a world where your ability to concentrate and do outstanding knowledge work is critical to your success on the job, the world is at the same time conspiring to pull you away from the very things you should be dedicating time to.
I’m a huge fan of technology, but this is one place where companies are plotting against you, intentionally or not. Many industries survival depend on capturing as much of your attention as possible. I’m not just talking about print media and TV. Even companies like Google, whose motto is “do no evil,” derives the majority of its profits (virtually all in fact) through advertising. The more time you spend on its properties and the more content you search for, the more money they make.
Google has a vested interest in capturing more of your time. Unless your job is to search for and consume content online, this is a problem.

Likewise, even companies like Microsoft (my alma mater) rely on making their software more relevant and “useful” to you. New applications are invented to create reasons to upgrade and renew your hardware and software. This often means, particularly for communications software like email and messaging, the invention of easier means for people to interrupt each other. Companies use the buzzword “collaboration” instead of “interruption” but the later is often what the tools are enabling. Hot collaboration software companies like Slack are continuing the trend of never-ending disruption under the guise of productivity.

In the good-ole-days, you could at least hop on a plane or visit a coffee shop to escape the distraction of technology, but smartphones and ubiquitous wi-fi are making that a tough act to pull off.

The world is screaming for your attention, but your success (and I posit, your happiness and your health) depend on your ability to ignore these pulls and instead, concentrate on doing your work.

I’m not saying technologists have mal-intent. They are innovating as they should. The onus is on us, the consumers, to build up the practices and structures to help us maintain focus and sanity in a world that is clamoring for our attention. Perhaps a new breed of startups, fueled by the Time Well Spent movement of Tristan Harris, will help us combat this problem.

Next, I’ll share some of my favorite methods for eliminating distraction and improving focus. It’s all about breaking your multitasking habit.

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