If you’re a multi-tasker you may want to give it up … immediately!
Most people try to multitask, and many of them consider themselves quite adept at it.
Multitasking is the scourge of modern day society. It is the root cause of poor listening, poor communication, and sloppy execution of many day-to-day tasks.
Slowly, assiduously, we have adopted one communication device after another until the devices have become the tail wagging the dog. We have become slaves to the tools.
Watch some harried person, or perhaps yourself, who is actively plugged into the complete communication system; that would mean live email, fax, Twitter, smartphone/cellphone, landline phone, internet, Facebook etc. That person will literally live their daily life in response to the never-ending “siren calls.”
You might be thinking, yeah, so what’s your point?
The point is this, if someone is continually responding to the constant beeps and buzzes then clearly they’re not in control of their life. Put another way, would the person live differently if the devices ceased all communication for the day?
Years ago if a telephone rang every few minutes we would say, “It was ringing off the hook.” Compared to today’s ceaseless assault from all fronts, a singular ringing telephone is hardly noticed.
The purpose of this writing is to create awareness of a serious problem that we’ve allowed to control our lives while we unconsciously ignore its effects. Incredibly most of us are completely unaware of this growing problem – the ceaseless intrusion and interruption to our focus and conscious thoughts. Every time a devices sounds off, we drop our focus and divert our attention to the latest incoming message. In fact, many of us wouldn’t have it any other way. We have come to believe that orchestrating several different communications gadgets, while studying, watching TV, and socializing is a sign of our adeptness, mental prowess and infallibility. In reality it demonstrates inefficiency and an inability to focus.
Numerous studies have shown that the human brain is incapable of multitasking.
Most people who attempt to multitask are under the delusion that they can perform several cognitive duties at the same time, in perfect harmony, and in a fraction of the time than if they focused on one task and then another and finally another.
Before we dive into whether we can or cannot multitask the first step is to define multitasking. There are two actual definitions;
1. From a computer perspective it’s the concurrent operation by one central processing unit of two or more processes.
2. From a human perspective it’s the carrying out of two or more tasks at the same time by one person.
When it comes to successful multitasking, your subconscious mind is a master. It can simultaneously orchestrate millions of calculations per second as it oversees your heart rate, body temperature, digestion and everything else to keep you alive, while it effortless steers your car down the highway when you suddenly decide to daydream and pawn the task to your subconscious.
Your conscious mind however, is not capable of multiple, simultaneous calculations. It is capable of doing one thing at a time. Period. One thing at a time. If you’re about to protest by giving examples of your ability to watch TV while writing a report then you have landed on the very point of this writing … that’s multitasking and your ability to do so is an illusion.
By definition, when you think you are multitasking what you are really doing is rapidly shifting your focus from watching TV to writing your report, but you are not doing both things at the same time. In fact, most of your mental power is burned up in high-speed travel while you switch focus from one task to another.
Multitasking is the modern day version of the person who is incapable of concentration and focus. This is the person who is at work but is thinking of his family and what he wants to do when he gets home. Then when he gets home he’s thinking of all the things he needs to do at work. Result; he’s never really anywhere or truly present for anyone.
The above example is an ultra slow version of the inefficiency of switching attention.
You might be thinking; “That’s different, when I multitask I’m getting both tasks accomplished with perfect aplomb so who cares if I’m actually shifting my attention back and forth?” That’s just it. We fool ourselves into thinking that we’re doing more than one thing at a time, but in reality we just end up doing one thing after another poorly.
People who multi-task are 50% more likely to make mistakes and 34% less productive. It gives the illusion of doing several things at once but we’re doing a lot of things poorly. The human brain cannot multi-task and there’s down time when switching from one task to another.
A Stanford Study on multitasking reports;
People who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time, a group of Stanford researchers has found.
High-tech jugglers are everywhere – keeping up several e-mail and instant message conversations at once, text messaging while watching television and jumping from one website to another while plowing through homework assignments.
But after putting about 100 students through a series of three tests, the researchers realized those heavy media multitaskers are paying a big mental price.
“They’re suckers for irrelevancy,” said communication Professor Clifford Nass, one of the researchers whose findings are published in the Aug. 24 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Everything distracts them.”
The conscious mind can only do one thing at a time; it cannot do two things simultaneously.
Do you remember when someone told you to try and pat the top of your head while at the same time you were to rub you stomach? It was impossible to do until you focused your attention on one task (rubbing your stomach) and then delegated that assignment to your subconscious while your conscious mind focused on patting your head. Then if you were asked to try and reverse the process, pat your stomach and rub your head you had to once again focus on a task, assign it to your subconscious mind, and then your conscious mind could perform the remaining task.
How often do you drive down the highway deep in thought or conversation and suddenly realize that you’ve driven a long way past your exit? In situations like that who was driving? Your subconscious mind of course. You delegated the duty. That was a form of multitasking but notice what actually happened; your conscious mind may have started the journey but at some point it decided to focus on something else so it handed the task of driving over to your subconscious mind so that it could focus on daydreaming or conversing with someone in the car. Notice that your conscious mind was capable of handling just one task at a time.
Still not convinced? Try this little exercise. Pick up a pen or pencil and hold it tightly in your outstretched hand. Now ‘will’ yourself to drop it. The pencil fell no problem right? How did the pencil happen to drop? Your conscious mind told your hand to release its hold and the pencil fell.
Now I want you to hold the pencil in your outstretched hand again and while squeezing the pencil tightly I want you to say to yourself, “I can drop the pencil; I can drop the pencil …” repeat this over and over. You will clearly see that if you focus on what you are saying you will be incapable of releasing the pencil. The only way you will be able to do so is stop your internal dialogue and change the focus of your conscious mind from rambling speech to instructing your hand muscles to open. You see? As simple as this task is, you cannot consciously do two things at once. You cannot think “I can drop the pencil” and at the same time say to your conscious mind “Now, I will drop the pencil.”
The myth that we can multitask is an illusion. Falling prey to the illusion can have catastrophic effects on every aspect of your life. It can and will affect your ability to communicate, perform tasks that require concentrated effort and to simply enjoy a moment of solitude without intrusion.
Not too long ago one would have been branded as the unfortunate result of poor breeding if during a conversation one answered the phone or diverted one’s attention from the speaker without a legitimate emergency and a heart-felt apology. Today, such inconsiderate behavior is practically common. In the middle of a conversation people will wordlessly pick-up their phone and begin reading and responding to an incoming message as if the other person never existed.
Even though such behavior is becoming increasingly common, the basic needs of mankind to be appreciated, listened to and understood haven’t changed. The person who understands and practices the simple basics of social etiquette will always be welcome.
Whether we’re talking to another person, thinking, or performing a task, if something is important it deserves our undivided attention. If it isn’t important, then we might want to ask ourselves, why we’re even bothering.
Taken as an excerpt from 29 DAYS … to becoming a great listener and communicator
