The first article I saw that confirmed (always a nice thing) my personal belief that multitasking was the best way increase incompetency was in the WSJ in 2003, although some of the first experiments were in 1999.
A growing body of scientific research shows one of jugglers’ favorite time-saving techniques, multitasking, can actually make you less efficient and, well, stupider.
Six years later research using students at Stanford, who grew up doing multiple things simultaneously, the verdict on multitasking, was reinforced. Most interesting was the proof that the more a person multitasked in their lives the worse they did on the tests.
Multitasking is not efficient, nor does it get more work done faster. Quite the opposite. One task interferes with another, so everything takes longer because the brain loses time–and accuracy–in repeatedly shifting its effort.
Around the same time David Strayer, a professor of psychology at the University of Utah, who has been studying attention—how it works and how it doesn’t—his whole career, made a surprising discovery.
Much to his surprise, he identified a tiny group he calls “supertaskers.”
In this case tiny really means tiny—around 2% of the population.
Worse, for the 98%, practice doesn’t help, since it turns out the ability is most likely genetic.
Of course, humans being humans, people assume they are part of that 2%.
“The ninety-eight per cent of us, we deceive ourselves. And we tend to overrate our ability to multitask.” (…) The better someone thought she was, the more likely it was that her performance was well below par.
The researchers have developed an online version of the test, so if you are curious or actually think you are part of that 2% you can take the test and know for sure.
Brains work just as hard as bodies, if not harder and longer per 24 hour period.
It turns out that brains have their own janitorial system comparable to the body’s lymphatic system that cleans up metabolic toxins.
Maiken Nedergaard, a Danish biologist who has been leading research into sleep function at the University of Rochester’s medical school calls She called it the glymphatic system, a nod to its dependence on glial cells (the supportive cells in the brain that work largely to maintain homeostasis and protect neurons) and its function as a sort of parallel lymphatic system.
The bad news, from the viewpoint of most startup folks, is that it only works while sleeping.
“In a series of new studies on mice, her team discovered exactly that: When the mouse brain is sleeping or under anesthesia, it’s busy cleaning out the waste that accumulated while it was awake.”
But the truly bad news, the news that should make you think twice about ignoring these findings and charging ahead, is the long-term damage.
“The Journal of Neuroscience, the Veasey lab found that while our brains can recover quite readily from short-term sleep loss, chronic prolonged wakefulness and sleep disruption stresses the brain’s metabolism. The result is the degeneration of key neurons involved in alertness and proper cortical function and a buildup of proteins associated with aging and neural degeneration.”
It’s been proven over and over that a tired brain is neither productive nor innovative and now there’s early proof of potentially serious long-range damage from lack of sleep.
After all, what good does it do to improve physical health if your mind is rotting?
“Nationwide, entrepreneurs tend to eat more healthful foods and exercise more than other workers. But they also have more stress and are less likely to have health insurance.”
Worse, there is a chicken-and-egg connection between less sleep and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Not absolutely proven, but neither was the football connection between concussions and brain problems that is playing out in the courts today.
Editor’s note: Since the subject came up, what makes more sense to solve the problem of how a startup can offer health insurance than a startup with a founder who really understands?
Scott Gerber, founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, which provides startup mentorship and resources and conducts research on entrepreneurs’ needs. To address this problem, his organization is introducing StartupInsurance, an online platform of health insurance plans offered by major health insurers, which will be compliant with the Affordable Care Act by 2014 and are tailored for entrepreneurs.
Thanks to brain imaging scientists now know that your brain keeps growing as long as you’re alive.
Quite a difference from the old view that your brain stops making new neural connection around puberty.
Another new idea is that your brain needs just as much exercise as the rest of you, especially as you age.
Thinking is essentially a process of making neural connections in the brain. To a certain extent, our ability to excel in making the neural connections that drive intelligence is inherited. However, because these connections are made through effort and practice, scientists believe that intelligence can expand and fluctuate according to mental effort.
And a simple way to do it, thank to some of the leading brains at Stanford and, what else, but a startup.
Now, a new San Francisco Web-based company has taken it a step further and developed the first “brain training program” designed to actually help people improve and regain their mental sharpness. Called Lumosity, it was designed by some of the leading experts in neuroscience and cognitive psychology from Stanford University.
Most managers want to do a good job and are looking for ways to improve.
But, as one commented recently, if you do everything recommended by the experts you would use so much of each person’s time that productivity would tumble and even the best coaching would have a negative impact.
Which is why I say that management and coffee are similar.
The right amount of management/coaching is good for the brain in that it provides challenges that foster growth; it also lowers frustration and stress, which enhances mental and physical health.
According to the research, the “right” amount of coffee is around 20 ounces a day, i.e., one venti-size Starbucks.
That equates to the most effective management/coaching, which provides all the information needed to do the job at one time (not more nor less) and then gets out of the way while staying accessible if needed.
Many of the coffee-fueled are more likely to drink three to five ventis a day, which is detrimental to health and longevity.
A comparable amount of management/coaching is detrimental to health, productivity and retention.
People’s preoccupation with their screens has been blamed for many things and if you’ve been around someone who kept sneaking peeks while talking you know how annoying that is.
But did you know it messes up not only your brain, but also your capacity for connection, friendship, empathy, as well as your actual physical health?
Texting even messes up your infant’s future!
New parents may need to worry less about genetic testing and more about how their own actions — like texting while breast-feeding or otherwise paying more attention to their phone than their child — leave life-limiting fingerprints on their and their children’s gene expression.
It’s not just a case of being distracted.
Your vagus nerve connects your brain to your heart and how you handle your social connections affects the vagal tone, which, like muscle tone, can improve with exercise and that, in turn, increases the capacity for connection, friendship and empathy.
In short, the more attuned to others you become, the healthier you become, and vice versa. This mutual influence also explains how a lack of positive social contact diminishes people. Your heart’s capacity for friendship also obeys the biological law of “use it or lose it.” If you don’t regularly exercise your ability to connect face to face, you’ll eventually find yourself lacking some of the basic biological capacity to do so.
Do I think this research will actually make a difference in people’s actions?
No!
Even if the information becomes widespread I don’t think people would give up the instant gratification of being mentioned or conquer their FOMO and focus instead on quality face time.
It doesn’t seem a big deal right now, but look into the future at a world that doesn’t just lack connection and empathy, but is filled with people who aren’t even capable of it.
The article may be looking at kids, but kids grow up to be adults and genetic traits come along for the ride.
One particular gene, referred to as the COMT gene, could to a large degree explain why one child is more prone to be a worrier, while another may be unflappable, or in the memorable phrasing of David Goldman, a geneticist at the National Institutes of Health, more of a warrior.
Granted, the researchers were looking at short-term, i.e., competitive stress, but the solution was still the same as it is for stress that lasts longer. (The COMT gene also has a major impact on interviewing.)
They found a way to cope.
For many people stress is the result of losing control.
But if there is anything experience should have taught you by a very early age is that you can’t control your world; not even a tiny part of it.
I learned that lesson as a child of five when my father died and nothing ever happened after that to change my mind.
If you put your energy into controlling stuff to avoid stress you are bound to fail.
Energy spent on control is energy wasted.
Energy focused on coping provides exceptional ROI.
How many times have you interviewed candidates who performed superbly in multiple interviews, but not once they were hired?
Conversely, have you taken a chance and hired candidates who didn’t interview well, but turned out to be some of your most productive and innovative performers?
Have you wondered why? More importantly, have you wondered how to avoid having this happen or at least have warning that it might?
An article details new brain research that explains what may be going on even though it is focused on kids and test-taking.
It comes down to the genes and brain chemistry that regulates an individual’s response to stress.
The researchers were interested in a single gene, the COMT gene. This gene carries the assembly code for an enzyme that clears dopamine from the prefrontal cortex. That part of the brain is where we plan, make decisions, anticipate future consequences and resolve conflicts. “Dopamine changes the firing rate of neurons, speeding up the brain like a turbocharger,” says Silvia Bunge, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley. Our brains work best when dopamine is maintained at an optimal level. You don’t want too much, or too little. By removing dopamine, the COMT enzyme helps regulate neural activity and maintain mental function.
Here’s the thing: There are two variants of the gene. One variant builds enzymes that slowly remove dopamine. The other variant builds enzymes that rapidly clear dopamine. We all carry the genes for one or the other, or a combination of the two.
While you can’t condition the brains of your candidates to respond well to the stress of interviewing, you can provide an environment that allows the “worriers” to perform better and gives a clearer picture of the “warriors” true skills.
To some extent you can level the field by eliminating as much stress as possible for the entire interview process. For instance
take time to put them at ease;
avoid two and three-on-one interviews;
avoid interviewing actions that feel like judgments or tests;
make the process transparent;
inform them about the process; and
avoid surprises.
Lowering interview stress allows the “worriers” to perform better and removes the “warrior’s” edge.
Technically speaking the links I’ve been offering lately have been off subject and perhaps I should apologize to the purists among you (assuming there are any). But I honestly believe you can draw useful intelligence from off-subject information and experiences, both direct and vicarious, to apply to your professional life, while some just apply living in general. Today I’ll start with the most applicable and move outwards to the indirect.
It’s a well-known fact that the line you aren’t in moves fastest—or does it? New research shows that it’s not how long you actually wait, but how long you are idle that counts, which is why I always try to carry a book.
“Often the psychology of queuing is more important than the statistics of the wait itself,” notes the M.I.T. operations researcher Richard Larson, widely considered to be the world’s foremost expert on lines. Occupied time (walking to baggage claim) feels shorter than unoccupied time (standing at the carousel). Research on queuing has shown that, on average, people overestimate how long they’ve waited in a line by about 36 percent.
Understanding nonverbal communications means more than looking at the obvious clues, such as crossed arms; it means taking the 3 C’s into account.
One way of increasing your accuracy is applying the 3 C’s of Nonverbal Communication: context, clusters, and congruence. Context includes what environment the situation is taking place in, the history between the people, and other factors such as each person’s role (for example- an interaction between a boss and employee).
Parenting and managing (or leading, if you prefer) have a lot in common, so I tend to read parenting articles.
A recent essay from a college professor who understands both sides of the coin when it comes to disengaging from a child-about-to-be-an-adult offers up insights that are just as useful to a manager struggling to delegate as to a parent who needs to let go.
Parents and children follow one another’s progress on Facebook. They post photos of the campus lobster bake on Instagram. They tweet. They text. They Tumbl.
There are times when I want to tell my students that if they want to learn anything at college, their first step should be defriending their parents. (…) Now that I am one myself, I finally know what it is parents are going through — not just letting go of a child but of an entire chapter of their lives.
Finally, The NYT has a feature called Room for Debate that poses a subject with experts on both sides adding their thoughts. Frequently the best stuff is found in the hundreds of comments. The most recent asked if “modern parents were rude… Or just doing what’s best for their children.” Lyss Stern, founder of Divalysscious Moms, a “luxury lifestyle company for urban mothers”, provided the most comic relief from a modern, totally self-absorbed mindset—almost a caricature of the subject.
“Yes, sometimes I did let my younger son run around Barney’s because I know he’d pitch a fit if I kept him in his stroller. But that doesn’t make me a bad mom.”
Sorry Lyss, according to 99% of the comments I read it does.
I met “Sue” (not her real name) in the late 1990s when I lived in San Francisco and we were friends for more than a decade.
Perhaps I should say that she considered me her best friend, “like a sister,” while I considered her more of a long-term acquaintance.
Why the difference?
Because while I listened to her difficulties, offered support and advice when requested there was little reciprocation and less empathy coming my way.
What escalated over the years were the complaints.
Complaints about people, situations, problems; many were real, while some were self-made—the result of her own actions.
She had no interest in brainstorming solutions, didn’t bother sharing the positive things that did happen and when I mentioned them she would rant on that they were too little and cite every negative about them.
As the complaining increased my desire to interact decreased.
When she questioned my withdrawal I told her that I had enough challenges in my own life and her negativity was exacerbating them she accused me of not caring or making any effort to understand what she was going through.
Knowing the challenges and real horrors Sue has overcome in her life I have enormous respect for her, but that didn’t outweigh my desire to eliminate the negativity from my life and earlier this year I severed connections with her.
Even worse, being exposed to too much complaining can actually make you dumb. Research shows that exposure to 30 minutes or more of negativity–including viewing such material on TV–actually peels away neurons in the brain’s hippocampus. “Typically, people who are complaining don’t want a solution; they just want you to join in the indignity of the whole thing. You can almost hear brains clink when six people get together and start saying, ‘Isn’t it terrible?’ This will damage your brain even if you’re just passively listening. And if you try to change their behavior, you’ll become the target of the complaint.” the part of your brain you need for problem solving,” he says. “Basically, it turns your brain to mush.”
It confirmed all my gut reactions, the mental effects I felt and that I’d done the right thing in severing the relationship—even though I did it years later than I should have.
Read the article (it’s short) and then apply as needed—you will be amazed at the quality-of-life difference it will make.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Startup people are notorious for their long work hours.
Thanks to brain imaging scientists now know that your brain keeps growing as long as you’re alive.
How much management/coaching is too much?
People’s preoccupation with their screens has been blamed for many things and if you’ve been around someone who kept sneaking peeks while talking you know how annoying that is.
Technically speaking the links I’ve been offering lately have been off subject and perhaps I should apologize to the purists among you (assuming there are any). But I honestly believe you can draw useful intelligence from off-subject information and experiences, both direct and vicarious, to apply to your professional life, while some just apply living in general. Today I’ll start with the most applicable and move outwards to the indirect.
I met “Sue” (not her real name) in the late 1990s when I lived in San Francisco and we were friends for more than a decade.
