Multitasking is a myth of the digital age.
We are inundated with notifications, screens and messages, so we like to think we are better than generations past at multitasking. The truth is, when we multitask we are less creative, less efficient and often avoiding the hard work that needs to get down.
To truly complete work that matters, we must avoid task switching. This post will show you how.
Task Switching
Task switching is starting one task and moving to another before the first task is finished. The simplest example is cooking in the kitchen, the phone rings and you’re pulled away. When you get back the food is burned!
Task switching is more the rule than the norm as anyone with multiple tabs on their internet browser can attest. Task switching falls into three broad types: emergencies, interruptions and distractions.
Emergencies
Emergencies are what we like to think causes our task switching. We’re writing a paper for school and our sister falls down outside and needs our help. Minor emergency, but emergency nonetheless. We stop writing and go attend to her scraped knee.
Fortunately, very few of our task switches are actually emergencies. That flash sale on Instagram? Not an emergency. The sudden urge to take the ice bucket challenge? Not an emergency. Haven’t checked your email in 10 minutes? Not an emergency.
If the urge to switch tasks is not an emergency than it is either put upon us from others (interruption) or is created by ourselves (distraction).
Interruptions
Interruptions are everywhere. When someone calls, knocks on your door or talks to you from the cubicle beside you, they are demanding your attention that moment. They are interrupting whatever you are doing and putting their priority ahead of yours.
Interruptors will ask: do you have a minute? The answer is yes, you have a minute, but no, you cannot afford switching tasks because it is a much bigger distraction than just a minute. By accepting the interruption your mind is no longer focused on the task at hand. When you come back to the task, it may take minutes or even hours to get back into the flow of writing, analyzing, designing or whatever you were doing before the “1 minute” interruption.
If we truly want to complete work, especially creative work that requires deep thought, we need long blocks of time to work and think.
As Jason Fried asks in his TED talk, when was the last time you had a full 8 hours to work? Or 7? Or 6? Or even 2? We have an entire workday but work doesn’t get done at work because of the constant interruptions, often from managers and meetings.
Some interruptions cannot be avoided, but if you are on the lookout, you can minimize interruption so you can finish the hard work that matters.
Distractions
We often like to blame interruption from others for our lack of productivity, but usually it is our own fault. We take a break to check our email, or see what’s happening on Facebook. We open another tab while the one we are on is loading, or we check our phone while we read a report (and while we have Netflix playing in the background).
These task switches are distractions, created by ourselves to avoid doing the hard work. These distractions leave us with a pile of half-completed to-do’s and a slew of open tabs that we aren’t ready to close at the end of the day.
5 Ways to Avoid Task Switching
Fortunately, a few simple techniques help to avoid frequent task-switching.
1. Don’t answer unknown phone numbers
If the call is important, they will leave a message and you can call back when you are completed with a task. If it’s an emergency they’ll call again.
As Ferriss notes, answering calls when you don’t know who is calling or what it is about puts you in a weak negotiating position. It’s far better to know going into a call what to expect. Using a tool like Google Voice will even transcribe the voicemails for you so you can quickly read through what the call was about and decide if it is worth switching tasks.
2. Don’t accept meetings without a specified agenda and end time
Meetings, as Fried notes, are one of the prime killers of creative thinking. Plus, the meeting happens at a specific time regardless of what you are working on. Avoid being forced to switch tasks from work to meeting by shortening meetings with a clear end time. The agenda allows you to decide if you need to attend, and if you do attend, how to avoid task switching within the meeting.
3. Use Freedom
Freedom is a simple application that prevents you from using the internet for specific period of time. If you need to finish that report, Freedom will prevent you from opening your email or Facebook. You can choose how long you want your freedom to last. At first it will be painful, but soon you’ll train your mind to work in short, focused bursts.
4. Don’t ask a question while someone’s working
Use passive communication. In the workplace it is easier to turn to your neighbor and ask a question than looking up the answer yourself. Avoid this trap. By interrupting their work with an in-person request, you make it very difficult for them to say no and stay focused.
Instead, ask them the question through passive communication. This could include an instant message, an email or even a note. These communication tools, many which we highlighted in this post, allows the recipient to wait to answer until they finish a task. It also forces you, the person asking, to rethink how important this interruption is before you make it.
5. Batch tasks
Since task switching is a killer of productivity and creativity, it makes since that tasks should be batched. That means you should send all your emails in a short, focused period of email writing. You should visit all your social media sites in a quick 15 minute break between other work. You should write the report, compose the song or design the graphics in a focused burst of work. Then, take a break. The point of this productivity stuff is give you more time to do what matters to you.
Parkinson’s Law
Focused bursts of work improve your productivity.
In a humorous essay published in 1955 in The Economist, Cyril Northcote Parkinson noted that the bureaucracy of the British Civil Service was largest when its empire was its smallest. His lesson has been extrapolated to neatly argue that the longer you have to do something, the longer it takes you to do it.
In essence, the best per minute output you will have is when you have tight deadlines. Having an end point to your work increases the work you’ll get done. We all know this if we have waited until the last minute to finish work right before the deadline.
Batching tasks helps you impose arbitrary deadlines that will improve productivity and help you have more time to relax and enjoy life. Task switching does the exact opposite.
Avoid task switching and multitasking. Instead, give yourself room for creative work that matters. There is a difference between busy and world-changing. You can do the latter.
Photo: vagabondblogger
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