You may think you can do many things at once, but in fact what you are actually doing it switching between one task and another very quickly. What’s bad about this?
Well for one thing some complex tasks require getting up to speed and each time you go off task the process of warming-up to the problem need to recommence. That is a waste of time. The other problem is that each time you switch it consumes energy in the switch-process, which could have otherwise been put to completing the task.
As a project and programme manager I have often said it is better to do 1 thing 100% than 100 things each at 1%. A 1% improvement is just dissipating your effort and will hardly be discernable compared to something that gets your full commitment.
Reality is somewhere in between prioritising maybe 5 key tasks, or 5 projects and then dividing your time logically. I know some who advocate a day each week dedicated to one project and for that day they are exclusive about their focus.
You can do similar things by carving up your day and dedicating certain times for emails, meetings, thinking, sport etc. This logical, locational and time separation improves performance of all those tasks.
This isn’t just good time management, there is good neuroscience evidence that this works. Indeed if you have a separate PC and a separate office for each project you are likely to perform better on each task. This is because a million years of evolution means the brain is good at linking memory with location: where was that water, where was that tiger, where were those fruits. If you can have a separate location for each thing or theme then you can improve your recall and capacity around that theme.
This is obvious when you think about it: you don’t find all the books of the library all in one bucket, but nearly laid out in a way that makes it faster and easier to see themes and draw knowledge.
What may be less obvious is that students who study in a room, get far better results if they then take their exams in the same room! Location gives us context, and builds associations and patterns which help thinking in that context.
Neuroscience also tells us that if we multi-task we are likely to get our mental filing wrong and misplace thoughts and feelings in the wrong categories. Specifically if the “wrong” area of the brain is activated then the experience is logged there instead of where it should be; with the result being faulty, flawed or false memory. A study showed that doing homework whilst watching TV caused information to be stored as “procedures and skills” not “facts and ideas”.
The other issue is the energy costs of decision making and task switching. The brain consumes lots of glucose in this process and if bombarded with choices, decision and task switching the capacity to make good decisions pretty much nose-dives.
Interestingly the issue is not one of complexity: small decisions take the same mental energy as big decisions. So if you can get your staff, supporters, your secretary or others to take the easy decisions you can save your energy for the big issues. Highly successful people surround themselves with good people so that they can minimise the decisions they have to take, and maximise the time of which they can think about them.
My advice would be don’t multi-task, but instead separate out people, places and tasks to offer yourself more breadth of space and time for your thinking.
SOURCE
I am currently reading, and strongly recommend The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload Hardcover – 19 Aug 2014 by Daniel J Levitin (see link below)http://www.amazon.es/The-Organized-Mind-Thinking-Information/dp/052595418X
THE AUTHOR
Tim Rogers is an experienced Project and Change Leader. He is founder of ciChange.org and curator for TEDxStHelier.Com . Roles have included Programme Manager for the incorporation of Ports and Jersey, and Jersey Post, as well as Operations Change and Sales Support for RBSI/NatWest. He is also Commonwealth Triathlete and World Championships Rower . He has a passion for learning and has been a Tutor/Mentor for the Chartered Management Institute. He is a Chartered Member of the British Computer Society, has an MBA (Management Consultancy) and is both a PRINCE2 and Change Management Practitioner.
Tim HJ Rogers
PRINCE2 - MBA (Consultancy) - APMG Change Practitioner
Http://www.timhjrogers.com | Twitter @timhjrogers | Skype @timhjrogers | Mobile: 07797762051 Curator TEDxStHelier (http://www. TEDxStHelier.com)
Founder ciChange (http://www. ciChange.org)
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