"A man capable of driving safely while kissing a beautiful young woman simply doesn't give the kiss the attention it deserves." (Quote attributed to Albert Einstein).
Recently, I participated in a debate on a social network, in which two currents had opinions on multitasking. One of them stated that it was a quality in high demand by companies today , given the complex and changing environment in which knowledge workers carry out their work. He was referring to the ability of a person to do jobs of different types. That is, he valued the fact of having different skills and abilities and knowing how to apply them correctly in his work.
I think we will all agree with this concept. Except in very specific and not very common cases in which the specialization is so extreme that the task to be carried out is only one , in the rest of the cases there will always be multitasking.
Personally, I would not call this concept multitasking, at least from a personal productivity point of view. I would call it the ability to manage different things.
The fundamental question, at least from this point of view, is how we manage that multitasking . In other words, how we manage our attention or what we dedicate it to.
If we go back to the quote with which I started this article, driving requires attention and kissing, if it is to be done well, too. I find it hard to believe that you can pay attention to both things at the same time: either I attend the kiss or I attend the road.
There are things that can be done automatically and do not require our concentration. There are also things that require our concentration and cannot be done automatically.
To the extent that two things do not require attention, we can do them at the same time: breathe and chew gum. If one requires attention but the other does not, we can also do them: memorize a lesson and chew gum. But if both require our attention, we can no longer do them at the same time . This is so because our brain is only capable of paying attention to one thing at a time in a conscious way. Try as we might, we will not be able to memorize the lesson and perform mathematical operations at the same time. We will have to distribute our attention sequentially going from one task to another. At this moment I memorize the lesson but I stop doing operations; In the next one, I will shift my attention to the other task but I will stop attending to the effort to memorize.
In our day to day we fall too often in trying to simulate two or more tasks that require our attention. Actually, you might ask me: which ones do not require my attention in some way?
What consequences does this way of acting have? We clearly lose effectiveness , this point is very easily demonstrable. We lose it because every time we return to a previously abandoned task, our brain needs extra time to return to the situation it was in when it was abandoned for another. Furthermore, our stress level increases and our ability to concentrate decreases.
But there can also be other cases, in which we do not do simultaneous tasks but leave tasks unfinished because new inputs arrive. We act this way because the new task makes more noise in our minds, and it probably does so because its content is more emotionally charged. How many times does it happen to us that, for example: I am working on an estimate to be delivered to a client and I receive a call from another, with a claim or raising a problem? Most likely, I will leave the budget without finalizing and start to solve the call received. But ten minutes later and almost without having started the second term, my boss calls me saying that he wants to be with me right away to discuss the agenda for tomorrow's meeting. I'm in pure entropy (the order tends to the disorder if something is not done to remedy it).
Without realizing it, I have two tasks on my mind that are noisy and emotionally charged. Speaking plainly, I stressed, overwhelmed me and I will cause distraccione s . They are two incomplete tasks; If I want to retake them, I will also need extra time to relocate to them.
Acting like this has the same consequences: they make us work inefficiently and reduce our productivity , they have a significant economic cost and another more important and often not valued, such as the opportunity cost. I also call this multitasking.
This is the most unproductive, ineffective and inefficient way to work, as I will have to dedicate far more resources to finish my tasks than if I had completed them, from start to finish.
As Peter Drucker said, "If there is a secret to effectiveness, it is concentration." We will hardly reach it if we fall into multitasking.
How many times do similar things happen to you every day? Have you identified their consequences? How would you feel if you could avoid them? What are you going to do to achieve it?
