Multitasking – The Myth!

I received this from a friend of mine. We share a lot of emails and various other stuff, and this one is worthy of passing on. He writes:

This guy I know at Honeywell that moved across the country to work at another Honeywell writes these.  Just thought I’d share it.

He didn't share who the author is, but if you're out there somewhere, here's a tip of the hat to you. Send us more.

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“Sorry, I didn’t hear you. Can you repeat that?”
“You will have to go through that last discussion again, I was multitasking.”
“Oops! I was talking on mute.”

Have you heard these or similar statements on conference calls or even in face-to-face meetings? Chances are you can name more than once when you this happened. Have you said any of these things yourself? If you have been on calls with me in the past, you may have heard it from me. Like many others, I once bought into the myth that you can truly “multitask” and pay full attention to more than one thing at a time. While this may be true for simple tasks, like walking and chewing gum at the same time, it does not really hold true for tasks that need more conscious thought and attention. I have become more aware that when I or someone else so called multitasks, we are not able to fully pay attention to those multiple tasks. We either pay attention to one and not the other or we are distracted from both.

Take for instance that person on the phone who asked you to repeat something because they were multitasking. In reality, they were not tending to the task of listening to you because they needed you to repeat yourself. One of the most clear examples of this is watching people who are talking on their mobile phone while driving. They typically don’t maintain a constant speed, they may weave in and out of the lane they are in, and they hit the brakes for no apparent reason, or even worse, too late! We will save the subject of driving while on the phone for another time. In the mean time, you may want to get the new bumper sticker I am producing that says “Hang up the phone and drive!”

 I tested the hypothesis today that multitasking is really not possible. At least for me, I proved I cannot do it well. When I was reading an email while someone was talking on the phone, I missed most of what they said (I did this intentionally for my test, of course). When I had two calls going at the same time, I completely missed what was said on one or the other. When I tried to walk and text at the same time, I almost ran into a mailbox (not literally, but it is not a safe thing to do in any event).

 What are you communicating to others when they have to repeat themselves because you weren’t listening. Even if you were listening, what are you communicating by multitasking? People can honestly tell when you are paying attention to them or not engaged in a conversation, whether you are there in person or not. Isn’t multitasking really you saying to the other person, “You are not as important to me as what I am doing right now!” or that you are too busy to listen to them? Maybe it communicates “I only accepted this meeting to be on the list of those who attended” or some other personal benefit that takes precedence over the priorities of the others in the conversation.

 Try practicing “mono-tasking” this week (a new term I just coined!). Do one thing at a time with your full attention. Listen to one conversation at a time and engage yourself in that conversation or meeting. If something else is more important, maybe you should excuse yourself and come back to the conversation when you are finished taking care of whatever is making you lose focus (I did this later today in a call and it really paid off). Be honest with yourself and others, do you really, truly “multitask” or are you just letting that be a reason to justify your distractions? We all certainly have a lot to do every day, but if we want to do it to our best capability and get the best results, we need to mono-task more and multitask less.