Multitasking Makes You Slow and Stupid…
Written by Tim Gary on February 16, 2008 – 9:37 am -I’m fairly certain that you are actually smarter than you act. Sadly, you may be acting stupid, and I’m often in the same boat as you. Without proper focus, you’re doing things. This is not to say that you are stupid, I’d be willing to bet that you aren’t. You’re just doing some stupid things. Just like me.
Why so harsh? There’s an enlightening article in The Atlantic, which basically says that multitasking makes you stupid and slow, and who isn’t multitasking these days?
- The tv’s on in the background while we “work” on a project
- We’re on the phone while driving
- We’re checking email 10 times an hour while writing an article, or performing some vital business task
- The number of web browser windows that are open an awaiting our attention is well in the the double digits
- Chewing gum while walking seems like child’s play–better add a cell phone and a jump rope
It’s a long article, but worth reading if only to scare you straight. I really love the part where a researcher gives hope for multitaskers. He says that people can actually learn to do 2 tasks “at once” as well as someone who does them sequentially. Ah… Hope! Of course, his studies indicate that it takes 2000 times before this is exhibited. So much for the good news.
Computers multi task, and it often slows them down to a crawl. Much of the time, they are responsive. This is usually because they’re doing relatively little in the background. But take your basic machine, and do something like search for all files on the main hard drive that contain the text “internet marketing”. Let it go and find those files. Then start using the machine for something else. Web Browsing. Write an article. Run your virus checker… You’ll likely notice a huge difference in responsiveness of the machine. It’ll take you longer to do what you want to do, and it’ll also take the machine longer to find the files.
This happens for a reason other than the cpu speed. It happens because there’s another bottleneck in the system, the hard drive. Not matter how fast the computer chip can process things, it still needs to access data on the hard drive to accomplish its tasks. The hard drive is extremely slow compared to the cpu, so the cpu ends up waiting around a lot for it to return data.
While I don’t know what the bottleneck in you is, I’m sure at least one exists, and if you are attempting to concentrate one more than one thing at a time, you will slow down, and become stupid. At least temporarily. The easy remedy?
- Do one thing at a time, and do it well.
- Focus only on that one thing.
- Get it done. Finish it.
- Move on the the next thing.
No bottleneck… Just results.How will this work for you?
| About the Author Tim Gary's Internet Business and Personal Success delivers easy to use ideas on business and personal prosperity, online and off. Visit his blog at www.timgary.com. |
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Tags: focus, Information Overload, multitasking, Online Business, Self Development, success
Posted in Information Overload, Online Business, Online success, Self Development, law of attraction |
June 7th, 2008 at 7:02 am
Yes, though I’m guilty of it myself, I have to say it is not a lot of fun talking to someone who is multi-tasking (reading other emails, working on a document, etc.) at the same time. I’ve been tempted to say “call me back when you can talk”, but my own guilt about doing the same thing stopped me!
June 27th, 2008 at 7:12 am
This is so true… I often try to do more than one thing at once and it always brings down my productivity. I guess a first measure could be to close Outlook because always being interrupted by emails is one of the biggest brakes…
Thanks for sharing this
Mike
July 19th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Well thats what my wife keeps telling me anyway…mind you, now she is pregnant she is just about as bad…multi tasking…not my strength
July 24th, 2008 at 8:57 am
You are so right with the “do one thing and do it well”! - Starting multiple projects at once makes you much less productive than focusing your attention on one thing.
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:06 am
In general, I agree with this; multitasking can have its advantages, but it is very difficult for me to put anything close to 100% effort into each task if I’m trying to do two or more things at once.
Multitasking can work OK for things like surfing traffic exchanges, doing boring clicks on PTR sites, etc. But for any type of really important work I have found that it is better to give each project my full attention so that I don’t have to worry about the quality suffering later.
August 17th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
I’ve never seen it written so strongly, but how right you are. It is for this reason I finally got smart and turn off my email for most of the day - I was finding myself constantly interupted and it was effecting my work.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Thats so true. It may be good at profession start-up or when you are teen, with so much excitement. But not in the long run. In fact you may compromise quality of both/all things being multitasked. I think it comes as you get more stable internally.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I totally agree with you. Multitasking does not work really well when you are trying to do two important things at once. 2 small tasks sure it will work perfectly fine, but if it involves actually thought process sticking to one thing at a time will definitely pay off in the long run and save your time.