Momentum: Multitasking; Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder

Multitasking is disadvantageous. Instead of completing a task on an even desired time, chances are you’ve just crumbled yourself into a sinkhole.

Here is a story on how multitasking will grow favor, away from you.

Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder

This is how it develops:

I decide to water my garden.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide my car needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice that there is mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mailbox earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think, since I’m going to be near the mailbox, when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first. I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only 1 check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking.

I’m going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don’t accidentally knock it over. I see that the Coke is getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold. As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye–they need to be watered.

I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my reading glasses that I’ve been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I’m going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly I spot the TV remote Someone left it on the kitchen table. I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the remote, but I won’t remember that it’s on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I’ll water the flowers. I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill. Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do. At the end of the day:

• the car isn’t washed,
• the bills aren’t paid,
• there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter,
• the flowers don’t have enough water,
• there is still only 1 check in my check book,
• I can’t find the remote,
• I can’t find my glasses,
• and I don’t remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I’m really baffled because I know I was busy all day long, and I’m really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I’ll try to get some help for it, but first I’ll check my e-mail.

How to stop multitasking:
1. Pause – Stop all the things that you are doing, chances are you do not even need to do that thing.
2. Plan  - What is the Most Urgent and Most Important thing that you need to finish?
3. Self Awareness and Self Control – Observe yourself or feel when you have the urge to do another activity that you don’t need. Halt that activity immediately.  Realizing that you are indeed doing unimportant and not so urgent task is a big leap towards productivity.

Check out:

	The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing It All” Gets Nothing Done
	The Multitasking Myth (Ashgate Studies in Human Factors for Flight Operations)

Related Articles:

1. Momentum: Eliminating Time Wasters and Eliminating Interruptions
2. Are you addicted to information II: Stop Reading and Start Doing
3. How We Choose I: Sheena Iyengar on the Art of Choosing
4. Don’t lose sight of you dream
5. Getting Things Done IV: The One Day Principle – How to (Re)Focus on a long forgotten task
6. How We Choose II: The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less by Barry Schwartz