Multitasking…

Working from home made me think of my colleagues and their desks at the office before current events hit.  At my company, having 2 monitors is the “norm” and several folks have 3.  Add in their laptop screen plus 1 or even 2 cell phones and their office cubes remind me of a fighter pilot’s cockpit LoL!

Naturally, my colleagues are using all their monitors and screens simultaneously aka “multitasking”, which seems to be held in high esteem in the technology sales profession these days.  I wonder how they feel about Susan Cain’s piece in her book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking ©?

…even multitasking, that prized feat of modern-day office warriors, turns out to be a myth.  Scientists now know that the brain is incapable of paying attention to two things at the same time.  What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.

Permit me to repeat (in case you were distracted by your other monitors and screens), scientifically confirmed multitasking, “reduces productivity and increases mistakes”.  Makes me think of:

Westheimer's Rule

To estimate the time it takes to do a task estimate the time you think it should take, multiply by two and change the unit of the measure to the next highest unit. Thus, we allocate two days for a one hour task.

Does that sound familiar?  How long does it take your company to complete projects?  I’m amazed being in the technology business how challenging in can be to get things done.  Probably the same in every business these days, true?

Westheimer’s Rule makes me think of Bill Gates:

The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency.  The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.

I wonder how many monitors Bill has in his home office.  Now that we are working from home, I wonder if my colleagues brought all of their equipment home so they can continue to use multiple screens and monitors for multitasking.  If they didn’t, I wonder if my company will be able to measure an up-tick in productivity and the improved accuracy cited science suggests.  What do you think about multitasking?  Does it magnify inefficiency?  Shorten our attention spans? 

I don’t know about you, but when I’m in a meeting; on a webcast; even talking on the phone, I can usually tell when the people I’m interacting with are multitasking.  Especially webcast meets, yes?  There’s that pause when we ask someone a question… and we wait … and we wait… and then comes the customary, “Sorry, I was on mute.”  I’m not calling others out – been there; done that; myself LoL!

Makes me think of my friend and former colleague Adam Katzenmeyer, a multi-monitored cube-mate of mine back in the day:

You only have to tell me twice, once.

Not that the other end of the focus spectrum is the answer.  We can become “overly focused”, just ask my wife:

My husband doesn’t watch TV; he becomes the TV!

I suppose the ideal answer lies somewhere in the middle; access multiple inputs, but keep them to a manageable level so as we switch back and forth we stay reasonably attentive to the task at hand.  Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  Hello?  Are you there?

                                                              GAP

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.