Came across Bradley Moore’s post on “The Spiritually Astute Leader’s Guide to What’s Hot in 2010″ and loved his humorous, candid style. Number one on his list was of particular note since I’m a die-hard proponent of uni-tasking (perfect term!) and have been since day one. You just can’t focus on anything well and be fully present when you’re trying to focus on a million other things all at the same time. Be sure and read and follow the links to the studies confirming what us uni-taskers have known all along.
Media Multitaskers Pay Mental Price, Stanford Study Shows
The Key to Effective Unitasking
Thanks for commenting. Yeah, the virtual assistant term is really completely idiotic to...
6 Comments
Great articles! Thank you!
What timing! I’ve just begun reading The Myth of Multitasking by Dave Crenshaw and have started to buy in to the concept of focusing on one task at a time. Crenshaw calls multitasking “switchtasking” because your mind cannot focus on multiple tasks simultaneously. It actually has to switch its focus from 1 task to refocus on another (jumping mental tracks). There is a price to pay when that is done by way of lost time and concentration- what Crenshaw deems a switching cost. It’s a good read and I’m looking forward to how to break my bad habit of “switchtasking” and effectively “unitask” (that’s a good term). Thanks for the post and the resources. I’ll definitely check them out!
Yes, it’s what I’ve long called the “switching of mental gears.” Makes things take even longer; soooo unproductive!
This makes sense…in the workplace admin assistants are routinely expected to multi-task, yet get reamed whem errors are made. “multi-task and do everything perfectly, or else.” I’m so glad to see studies that are validating what we aready know. It’s impossible to truly multi-task with high quality results. Uni-tasking rules!
I hear that, Judy! That’s one of the things I love so much about being a business owner–I get to set the conditions and the pace and care about the quality of my work and say “NO!” to anything that compromises that. No more bosses telling us “I need that 100 page proposal proofed and edited in 5 minutes and oh, answer the phones while you’re at it.”
@ Gavin, thanks for mentioning my book!
@ Danielle, thanks for being a champion of one-thing-at-a-time!
If you readers would like to take a free multitasking test, they can do it at:
http://www.davecrenshaw.com/exercise
This is an online version of an activity I take the audience through in my public speeches.
All the best,
Dave Crenshaw