The New York Times has a great article on the perils of multitasking ...
Um ... Wait a minute ... I'm on the phone ... Just a sec ... Let me check my email ... Oops, there's the FedEx guy .. Now, where was I ... Okay ... Yep ... Multitasking ...
Did we not use to call these distractions. All I know is on the road women seem to be better at it than guys. Purely from my observations when I get into morning traffic, they seem able to wrangle the kids, talk on the cell phone, drink coffee and shave their legs, all while driving. That would be recipe for disaster for me (especially the leg shaving part).
I am sorry for I digress. What the NYT reports is that:
Several research reports, both recently published and not yet published, provide evidence of the limits of multitasking. The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car.
According to the NYT: "[T]he answer appears to lie in managing the technology, instead of merely yielding to its incessant tug". Good advice, now try it. It is easy to say, but it is not easy to do.
Jonathan B. Spira, chief analyst at Basex, a business-research firm, estimates the cost of interruptions to the American economy at nearly $650 billion a year, but concedes it is a rough estimate. (The cost to the American economy for people reading estimates is probably a lot larger -- roughly speaking).
The article is good and you should read it. I also concede that multitasking is a problem to some extent. Lord knows that I sometime complain that I cannot get something completed because of the interruptions. And, I tend to believe we need to manage multitasking better because it is not going away for the Third Wave attorney or law firm. We are one man bands and multitasking goes with the territory.
I chuckle only at remembering stories of researchers that swore that man could not drive a car over 20 miles an hour because the human mind just was not capable of handling all of the task necessary to do so.
I think the emphasis needs to be on helping people to manage multitasking better.
... Okay, I'll have to get back to you on this ... there is this funny video on YouTube ... and then my son has a track meet ........... Is that my cell phone ...
Comments