Multitasking

I came out to work during the tail end of the “Go-Go ‘80s.” This was the decade where the nation rediscovered the joy of hard work and personal wealth. One of the products of this renewed focus on the workday was renewed commentary on what makes a productive worker. Not the assembly line kind, because those jobs were all heading offshore. No, it was how to be the most effective office grunt you could be. This was important. Prior generations counted how many widgets they made to know if they were going well. When your tools of the trade are the phone, fax and then computer (and now all kinds of gadgets) how could you tell when you’re having a good day?

So everyone and their mother decided they’d tell us. You couldn’t be seen on the subway without your current copy of “Secrets of Successful People” tucked under your arm. It wasn’t a bad idea. I found a lot of insight into some of these pages. Certain things held true for me, like combining similar activities, such as letter writing, and doing certain tasks at certain times of the day when you found yourself better focused for doing them.

For example, I prefer reading and reflective activities in the morning, social activities (meetings and the like) in late morning to mid-afternoon and production work, writing reports and the like, from early afternoon on. This uses my attention span in the best possible way. I’ve generally found it effective.

But I shouldn’t tell my bosses this any more. The big mantra now is “multitasking”, the purported ability to jump from one thing to another without batting an eye. Bosses all think they can do this. Science says otherwise. According to research, it takes time for the brain to shift to unfamiliar tasks. Go here for the link. This seems to be common sense. So why are we all so hip on multitasking now?

The answer, according to a New York Times piece, lies in our technology. Our computers and other doohickeys can move at near lightspeed, much faster than the human hand, eye and mind. While we’re moving from one task to the next, a machine has zipped through dozens, even more. Needless to say, our machines can multitask, and the technicians have got them doing it right before our eyes. Teevee news and sports shows are full of split screens and “crawls” across the bottom. Our word processor is interrupted when a new e-mail or Messenger request comes in. It’s no wonder that now we have headsets let us listen to music or NPR while we balance the checkbook or write that report. Heck, now one friend tells me his boss is offering iPods to workers. No problem listening to music and banging away at the keyboard. I remember when that was looked down on. You weren’t paying sole attention to your work. Now, it’s encouraged.

I wonder what kind of example I’m setting for my six year old son. I like the fact that he likes to play with blocks or cars or whatnot while he watches teevee. Any decent parent cringes at the mental image of their slackjawed young one staring mindlessly at the flickering tube. But I wonder if he’s the edge of a new generation which never takes doing just one thing as the basic rule of work and play. Maybe all those kids we’re diagnosing with ADD aren’t wounded. They’re just tomorrow’s multitaskers.