One of the things we pride ourselves on, when we get promoted into management is our ability to multitask. Women also tease men about being less adept than they are, at juggling multiple priorities. I watched with amusement as a friend of mine was making a round of tea for the guests, and every time he spoke, he stopped preparing the tea, until his wife with frustration marched across and took over the duties, before we all died of thirst.
It turns out, our rational brains are just not capable of multi-tasking - they are what is termed a serial processor. In other words, they physiologically can only do one conscious thing at a time. Unconsciously they are capable of amazing feats, all at the same time, but the intelligent, thinking tasks have to line up in single file for processing in our PreFrontal Cortex (PFC). When we think we are multi-tasking, we are in fact switching quickly between tasks. The more complex the task, the more information needs to be set up in our short term memory, to quickly access for rational processing. As soon as we are distracted by a different task, a different set of neurons has to be fired up to load up that thought pattern. We often quite accurately describe what is happening with phrases like: “now where was I?”, or “I have lost my train of thought”, yet for some reason we still persevere in trying to do multiple complex tasks at once. Even the simplest activity like rubbing our stomach while patting our head, we find difficult. Productivity in the modern workplace, where our jobs are to think, not to produce tangible things, has become woeful, yet often because we measure activity rather than results, we are not aware how poorly we are performing. Brain scans have shown that our IQ drops significantly with multi-tasking. Despite the fact that we enjoy the emotional satisfaction of being busy, as a recent study by Zhen Wang showed, in reality a study by Clifford Nass, at Standford university proved that even our switching ability gets worse, the more we do it. Unfortunately, as team leaders and managers we cannot just closet ourselves away, focusing on a series of single tasks until they are done. Despite the fact that it is the most effective way of completing the task, other people need access to our time, to complete their work. I have found the best way is to create some blocks of time in your day where you disappear into a meeting room or coffee shop and work on your top priorities in an uninterrupted and focused manner and at least ensure that for the most important things we do, we are doing it with our brains peaked to the maximum! The rest of the time, we have to bumble along with a damaged IQ, as we try to answer the phone while tapping away at the computer and pointing, using our nose, at the red file on the shelf that contains the project schedule he so urgently needs.
It turns out, our rational brains are just not capable of multi-tasking - they are what is termed a serial processor. In other words, they physiologically can only do one conscious thing at a time. Unconsciously they are capable of amazing feats, all at the same time, but the intelligent, thinking tasks have to line up in single file for processing in our PreFrontal Cortex (PFC). When we think we are multi-tasking, we are in fact switching quickly between tasks. The more complex the task, the more information needs to be set up in our short term memory, to quickly access for rational processing. As soon as we are distracted by a different task, a different set of neurons has to be fired up to load up that thought pattern. We often quite accurately describe what is happening with phrases like: “now where was I?”, or “I have lost my train of thought”, yet for some reason we still persevere in trying to do multiple complex tasks at once. Even the simplest activity like rubbing our stomach while patting our head, we find difficult. Productivity in the modern workplace, where our jobs are to think, not to produce tangible things, has become woeful, yet often because we measure activity rather than results, we are not aware how poorly we are performing. Brain scans have shown that our IQ drops significantly with multi-tasking. Despite the fact that we enjoy the emotional satisfaction of being busy, as a recent study by Zhen Wang showed, in reality a study by Clifford Nass, at Standford university proved that even our switching ability gets worse, the more we do it. Unfortunately, as team leaders and managers we cannot just closet ourselves away, focusing on a series of single tasks until they are done. Despite the fact that it is the most effective way of completing the task, other people need access to our time, to complete their work. I have found the best way is to create some blocks of time in your day where you disappear into a meeting room or coffee shop and work on your top priorities in an uninterrupted and focused manner and at least ensure that for the most important things we do, we are doing it with our brains peaked to the maximum! The rest of the time, we have to bumble along with a damaged IQ, as we try to answer the phone while tapping away at the computer and pointing, using our nose, at the red file on the shelf that contains the project schedule he so urgently needs.
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