Effectivity

Multi-tasking - Efficiency at the expense of effectivity

Electronic equipment is designed for multi-tasking.  The PC I am typing on can edit my writing, while it automatically backs itself up and plays me music (if it is having a good day).  My watch can tell me the time, plot my heart rate, track my movements, and calculate my speed.  These devices are designed to carry out a number of activities at a time, without reducing their performance.  We are not.

As humans we have gradually come to believe the doctrine of multi-tasking.  We have decided that the way to overcome our apparent shortage of time is to live more than one life at once.  Rather than being content to carry out one minute’s worth of life in one minute, we try to fit in 2 minute’s worth or 3 or 4.  It is, or at least was, fashionable for people to boast about how many tasks they can carry out simultaneously.  Some people still love to be seen walking down the street talking on one phone as they email on another and drink their coffee.  People say that women can multi-task effectively and men cannot.   I think this is being much too generous to women.  In actual fact none of us are as good at multi-tasking as we would like to believe. 

When we try to do too many things at once, we usually end up with one of two results:

1. It ends up taking about the same amount of time as carrying out the tasks separately, once we factor in fixing up mistakes and misunderstandings.  
2. The quality of all activities declines.

With practice, high powered people are able to pursue 2, 3 or maybe even 5 distinct activities at once.  If they took a rational view of the quality of their actions, then I think they would be very disappointed with the results.  If you are talking on the phone and are asked to make a decision, how can the quality of that decision be as good as possible, if your brain is being shared with an SMS you are writing, traffic signs you are keeping an eye on, and the cars that you are weaving through at high speed.  None of these activities can be done to high quality.  Sure you may get them done, but is that all your life is worth?

Are you satisfied pursuing a life where you simply get more done or are you better off doing less and doing it really well?  Multi-tasking is the 90’s response to the demands of productivity.   We have left that behind, now it is time to wake up and remember the boring old cliche “If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well”.  If the phone call is not worth your full attention, then end it.  If the meeting isn’t engaging you, then maybe you should politely back out.  Think about the last time you were on the phone trying to talk to someone and you realised that they were multi-tasking on you.  They kept dropping in and out of focus, they said some uncharacteristic things, you heard them dropping and rustling papers or taping on the keyboard and all of a sudden it clicked.  You were talking to only half of them or maybe a third or a quarter if you count the non-verbal conversation they are carrying on with the person who has just entered their office.  How does this make you feel.  If you are like me, you feel like leaving them to it.  Wind the conversation up and send them an email that they can half read while they waste someone else’s time on the phone.  At least you don’t have to waste your time repeating yourself over and over, in an email. 

There are times when doing more than one thing at once increases the value you get from your life.  When the two activities complement each other there are natural advantages to pursuing them both simultaneously.  I have no argument with eating ice cream while you watch a movie,  planning your day while you catch a train, or talking with a friend while you lap the park.  The conflict only occurs when the quality of either activity is reduced by multi-tasking, and it takes honest self knowledge to see that happening.

We have to limit what we do if we want to be truly effective.  Trying to cram more things into each minute is like trying to fit too much food in your mouth.  Sure you may be able to podge more in there but you will never be able to chew it all and it will probably make you sick.

Multi-tasking is useless for humans.  Anyone who tells you otherwise is having themselves on.  They can’t be serious if they tell you that their quality of life is the best when they are doing a handful of things at once.  They mistake quantity of action for quality of action and their total output suffers.  Just think, would you be happy going under the surgeon’s knife if she insisted on emailing other clients while she played with your internal organs?  When it is important enough we instinctively know that multi-tasking lowers quality of attention.

Multi tasking is great for computers - and it is useless for humans.  Am I wrong?

Thanks

Tom