Death to Multitasking
I was inspired by a recent rant on Don Frederiksen’s Lead Quietly blog on The Peril’s of Distracted Work. Frederiksen took a moment to object to the spoken (and sometimes unspoken) expectation that we all must multitask at work. He does this by sharing several solid scientific studies that prove that multitasking is something that the human brain simply does NOT do very well. As a result, many of us find ourselves frustratedly jumping from task to task, meeting to meeting, conference call to conference call, only to have our precious time in between zapped by the people who, as Frederiksen characterizes it, want to GAM (the result that happens when they say, “Got a minute?”). Sigh.
I started thinking about the multitasking assumptions that have been made about and further perpetuated by women. Less than 2-3 months ago, I would have ADAMANTLY argued that I am an expert multitasker. I would have declared that my gender, and the roles I play as a professional, wife, Mom and friend have prepared me to excel in this area. After all, as women, we had to learn how to talk on the phone with our friends, while we simultaneously cooked dinner, bounced our babies on our hips, and mentally rehearsed tomorrow’s big business pitch. And many of us feel as if we have been doing this successfully for years, thank you very much.
In fact, there is a whole body of research out there that maintains that women ARE better multitaskers. One such example featured a maze with male and female rats. The female rats could process multiple cues during their journey through the maze (like the geometry and landmarks), whereas male rats tended to focus in on one specific cue (just the geometry).* I am not sure if this is a study on multitasking or a study on which sex has a better sense of direction, but, that is a debate I will keep between my husband and I.
Another study found a physiological trait that may substantiate a woman’s superiority in the multitasking department. We have a larger corpus callosum (the part of the brain that facilitates the exchange of information between the left and right hemispheres of the brain). As a result, the study theorized, women can process different types of information more quickly and efficiently.**
But, the more I think about workplace productivity, for men AND women, the more I am starting to call “FOUL” on this whole multitasking idea. Even if women have had to develop a way to do it all, are we happy doing it? Do we feel like we do any of it well? Or do we feel like we are just barely a step ahead of having the bottom fall out from underneath us? Are we further perpetuating this myth that multitasking is something we are good at, thus thrusting ourselves into a no win situation? Do we believe on some level that there has got to be a better way to be productive?
The painful answers to some of these questions really dawned on me as I was reading “Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently” by Marcus Buckingham. He takes on the myth of multitasking head on:
“Your brain is physically unable to process more than one set of instructions at a time, so while you are juggling all of those actions at once, your brain is scrambling to keep up. Through a variety of experiments measuring brain activity, scientists have discovered that the constant switching back and forth from one activity to another energizes regions of the brain that specialize in visual processing and physical coordination, while simultaneously disrupting the brain regions related to memory and learning.”
Buckingham goes on to recount that famous Hewlett Packard experiment on multitasking as it related to job performance. The typical worker in the study experienced a 10 point drop in their IQ while multitasking. To put that in perspective, the productivity the worker displayed was similar to that of a person who had missed a night’s sleep. Or worse than that of a worker who was doped up (marijuana drops the IQ by four points or so). No wonder we multitaskers meet the end the day feeling unproductive and like we are in this tired haze.
In his book “The Myth of Multitasking: How Doing It All Gets Nothing Done,” Dave Crenshaw has re-coined the phrase multitasking to “switchtasking.” We are not REALLY doing two things at once. Instead, we are switching our attention from one task to another. And the fact is, we experience a mental delay as we try to refocus between those varied tasks. Stats on this lag time differ, from a few seconds to an unbelievable 25 minutes to really get back to what you were doing before you were interrupted or distracted (as referenced in Frederiksen’s blog and in a 2005 New York Times article by Clive Thompson called “Meet the Life Hackers“). So, in short, multitasking is slowing us down…not speeding us up!
I think we need to stop all the madness. Slow down. Concentrate on what we are doing by trying to perform one task at a time. Be purposeful in our daily activities. Schedule our time and “to-do’s” wisely. Design project plans and try to stick to them. And when we are communicating, give people our undivided attention (e.g. no reading email while trying to talk on the phone with a colleague).
And, ladies, can we stop perpetuating the crazy societal belief that we can “do it all?” Fact is, we can accomplish a lot…just not all at once! Let’s start a new women’s movement. One where we cut ourselves a break. Let’s liberate ourselves from the superwoman complex. Stop the grind from eating us up. Everyone in the workplace (and at home) will be better off.
In addition to the links I provided above, here are some articles, links, and websites with some good stuff on workplace productivity:
- Gina Trapani’s Work Smart series on FastCompany.com (especially this one, called “Stop Multitasking and Start Doing One Thing Really Well“)
- Sam Parker at Give More Media has a great blog post on “How to Focus“
Got any other suggestions on how we can find the “sweet spot” between the hurried, multitasking pace we often find ourselves in and the quiet, focused state we need to reclaim in order to be more productive? Please share!
* Research for the rat study was summed up in an academic article written by Brandy R. Criss, Department of Psychology student at Missouri Western State University. Or you can purchase the actual research study by Dr. Christina Williams of Duke University.
** Research for the corpus callosum was summed up in an academic article written by Brandy R. Criss, Department of Psychology student at Missouri Western State University. Or you can purchase the book published by Diane Halpern called Sexual Differences in Cognitive Ability.