Everyone is talking about multi-tasking; you’ll find job descriptions which require multi-tasking. You’ll find whole bookshelves devoted to the topic. It wasn’t until recently that I began questioning if multi-tasking might actually be less productive and actually not have much to offer in the way of benefits. The more I’ve been looking at multi-tasking, the more I’ve concluded there are really no benefits to it and
Downsides of Multi-Tasking
- Up to 40% less productive (according to research studies)
- Potentially unsafe (like texting driving)
- Quality can suffer do to lack of mindful focus on each task
- Benefits might include things being more interesting, a certain sense of challenge or adrenaline rush
Benefits of Single-Tasking
- More productive
- Safer
- Higher quality
- Downsides might be that things are less interesting and might induce boredom
How to Productively Single-Task
I remember taking a class in my MBA program where we had an exercise involving a service company. The problem involved 10 customers who had various service requirements. Some tasks only took three minutes and other took three hours. When adding up all the tasks for a given day there was six hours worth of work. The question was which order should the task be completed for the best results (factors like employee and customer satisfaction were included). The conclusion was that it was best to complete the shortest tasks first with the reason being that if you completed 10 customer orders at three minutes each, you would have 10 happy customers in the early part of the day whereas only one or two customers would be kept waiting because their services required more time. Additionally, those customers with tasks requiring longer times tended to be more accepting of waiting. Think of another example that seems to happen on a regular basis. If you go into a coffee shop wanting a straw and you wait while someone’s elaborate drink is prepared. Some business’s I’ve visited are aware of this and actually ask people in line if customers have one particular need. They then pull those out of line to be serviced quickly leaving customers with more time intensive tasks in the line. This approach tends to produce greater customer satisfaction. These same methods can be applied to single-tasking. If you list all your tasks for the day, accomplishing those with shorter time lines first will not only be more productive, but also give a person a feeling of having accomplished more in a shorter amount of time. Think about crossing off eight times on your list in the first hour instead of one. There is a feeling of productiveness and accomplishment that brings for greater happiness and satisfaction.
Addendum: I wrote this single-tasking article back in 2013 based on various ideas I’ve run across over the years. I recently found this interesting article with similar thoughts on the popular zenhabits blog: http://zenhabits.net/single/
