Comments on: Multi-tasking Must Die: 5 Ways to Single Task

By: DanGTD

DanGTD — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:25:31 +0000

Great article.

Internet related activities are one of the biggest attention robbers these days. Especially browsing, checking email and now twitter.

I read somewhere that when you are distracted (or you distract yourself) it takes your mind 20 minutes to come back where it was at. But since most of us get distracted more often than every 20 minutes…. we can do the math on this one: We never get anything done.

By: Jeremy Kriegel

Jeremy Kriegel — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:57:29 +0000

Don’t just set your blackberry/iphone/etc to silent during a meeting, turn off all email notifications. Period. I only keep appointment notifications on so that I am never tempted to check my mail when I’m in the middle of something else.

By: rockandrollguru

rockandrollguru — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:20:47 +0000

When we attempt to do more than one thing at a time it is virtually impossible to do any of them well. The only exception is listening to rock & roll. I do everything while listening to classic rock.

By: Phil Dourado

Phil Dourado — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:59:57 +0000

Hear, hear, Phil! As Kim says, I think it’s Rock and Schwartz’s work into the neuroscience of leadership, among others, that shows we don’t multi-task – the brain can’t; it jumps back and forth from one focus to the other. And it’s that constant jumping back and forth that is why the brain gets so tired by it. Your ’step away from the screen’ thing, Phil, also applies to children and parenting. If my son comes into the office, I make a point of turning away from the screen to give him my complete attention. That’s all they need from a parent half the time. But, in return, I also expect him to turn away from the Playstation when I ask him something, and show equal consideration by paying attention back…Still working on that one :-) . There is a generational thing in the workplace, too, tho’. Younger employees of mine (I gave up employing people: I wasn’t very good at it) would be working on something on their main screen, while listening to music with one earpiece of their iPod in, having a conversation with me (using the other good ear, but without turning off the iPod) and having at least two chat windows open. This isn’t multi-tasking so much (for the reason Kim outlines – it doesn’t exist) as a trained short attention span. Nano-short, in fact. They seem to get a buzz from the flitting back and forth. A guy at Microsoft once said to me “I work with brilliant minds that have the attention span of a gnat”. That’s a real issue for managers in the workplace today, I think.

By: Buddy Rathmell

Buddy Rathmell — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 11:11:34 +0000

Totally agree. Great Post Phil. Today I was meeting with someone and needed 20 uninterrupted minutes so in the middle of our meeting we moved out of my office to another part of the building where we wouldn’t be disturbed.

By: Kim Avery

Kim Avery — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:33:05 +0000

I completely agree. The temptation to multi-task is huge but science has now proven that there is really no such thing as multi-tasking.

Actuallly, we are shifting our attention in micro-bursts, which means at any given point in time we are not really paying attention at all.