Smart or stupid? Your choice!
by Miki SaxonBack in early 2003 I read an article in the Wall Street Journal called Multitasking Makes You Stupid and I cheered. Why? Because it’s always nice to have one’s opinion confirmed through scientific study by experts with lots of credentials—especially when most of the people around you are bragging about how well they multitask.
I got to thinking about that and did a bit more searching to see if anything’s changed. There’s one study that looked at gender differences and came to the conclusion that whereas productivity is about equal, women have a slight advantage in accuracy. I’m certainly not claiming I read all 250,000 pages returned on a search using the terms, multitasking study Dr university, but scanning through the first hundred I didn’t notice anything that contradicted what I’ve always thought—multitasking is not productive!
So what’s happened since the original article appeared? More ways to multitask; more managers demanding that their people do it; and more people bragging about their skill at it—more errors, accidents and loss of productivity.
Don’t believe me? Think about
- what it’s like talking to someone who is reading email or doing other computer tasks during the conversation;
- how close you’ve come to creaming someone, or being creamed, while talking on a cell;
- the last time you didn’t notice the sirens ’cause you were listening to an iPod or talking on a cell.
And before you write all this off with the famous “but me” argument ask yourself: are you really that different from the rest of the human race?
For more insights read HBS working Knowledge columnist Stever Robbins (among many others), then read my Think, Dream, Innovate, and then really think about how you want to run your life!
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June 13th, 2006 at 1:09 am
One of my most favorite subjects – time management, a very up-to-date issue and (?) almost inevitable in modern business life.
June 24th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
[...] Smart or stupid? Your choice! on the downside of multitasking [...]
July 5th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
Brilliant! Much better to focus on a task and complete it, then move onto the next task.
I want to thank Paulie Sabol for sending me to your site. This is some fantastic info.
Scott
March 18th, 2008 at 12:17 am
[...] written about this before, starting with proof that multitasking is a figment of your overactive imagination or wish list; then on to the time to think to [...]