Taste Life Blog

“I am cooking dinner and hear an email come in and race to my laptop on the kitchen table to respond right away and acknowledge the email.” “I realized I had a problem when my son got upset when I had to check my Blackberry during the game I was playing with him.”

Two different client stories but I bet they sound familiar. You are trying to save time by doing two things at once. Maybe you are making a list during a meeting, or sending an email while you are talking to your boss or worse yet talking on your cell phone while driving.

A Badge of Honor: Multitasking has taken over our lives where it almost seems boring to do one thing. We complain about being busy yet busy feels important. For some people being busy is like wearing a badge of honor. Even the Girl Scouts can earn a “Less Stress” merit badge for learning how to manage their busy lives.  Ironically, doing more than one thing at a time makes us less efficient and drains our brains!

Why dump the brain drain?: David Meyer, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, states there is scientific evidence that multitasking is extremely hard to do and sometimes impossible.  His studies show that people who multitask are less efficient than those who focus on one project at a time. The time lost switching among tasks increases with the complexity of the tasks.  A study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found it took students 40% longer to solve complicated math problems when they had to switch tasks.

Researchers at Mellon University asked students to listen to sentences while comparing two rotating objects. Even though these two activities engaged two different parts of the brain, the resources available for the processing visual input dropped 29% if the subject was trying to listen at the same time. The brain activation for listening dropped 53% if the person was trying to process visual input at the same time. You are kidding yourself if you think you can do two things without cost.

A study by Dr. Glenn Wilson a University of London psychologist, found that people distracted by incoming texts, emails and phone calls saw a 10 point fall in their IQ, more than twice that found in studies of the impact of smoking marijuana. He states, “Those who are constantly breaking away from tasks to react to email or text messages suffer similar effects on the mind as losing a night’s sleep.”

You can multitask but it is with a cost. Dr. Meyer’s studies have found that people who multitask experience warning signs like short term memory problems, a change in your ability to concentrate or gaps in your attentiveness. Intense multitasking produces an adrenaline rush that when it is prolonged can damage cells that form new memory.

So, what to do?

1. Mediate. Brain scans show people who mediate have increased development in regions associated with memory and attention.
2. Multitask in the morning. Your multitasking brain struggles with post lunch fatigue and the added strain of multitasking causes processing overload.
3. Check emails three times a day.
4. Create a power hour. The evening before know what project or task needs your complete attention and devote your first hour to focused action on that project. Then check emails!
5. Get plenty of sleep. As Shakespeare says, “Sleep is the chief nourisher of life’s great feast.”  Every task we do is easier when we are well rested. You need minimum 7 hours a night.
6. Focus on the moment, keep your focus there and then move on. Multitasking is the enemy of energy as you are partially disengaged in everything.
7. Manage your energy not time. If you have energy you can accomplish twice what someone without energy can and actually enjoy doing it.

Both clients have turned off their laptops and phones and honored their value of family time. Both are happier and as one stated, “I can’t believe I am still alive.” Remember the best things in life can’t be seen or touch (like your relationships) and are enjoyed in the moment.  Your true badge of honor remains in the present.