Free Personal Growth: The Myth of Multitasking - By Dave Crenshaw

I'd like to share a valuable principle with you. It's something I've taught to many business owners and executives I've worked with. This principle may go against the grain of some of your beliefs about time and the best way to get things done. Because of that, I ask you to keep an open mind.
Multitasking is a myth. It just plain doesn't exist.
Does that shock you? Multitasking has become something of a heroic word in our vocabulary. Many executives pride themselves on their ability to "multitask." Recent job descriptions that I have seen even ask that potential employees have the ability to multitask. A current national commercial sings the praises of multitasking. However, multitasking, as most people understand it, is deceptively counter-productive. Multitasking is tremendously costly. Multitasking hurts us every time we attempt to engage in it.
I should clarify a few definitions. When I speak of multitasking as most people understand it, I am not referring to doing something completely mindless and mundane in the background such as exercising while listening to a CD, eating dinner and watching a show, or having the copy machine operate in the background while you answer emails. For clarity's sake, I call this "background tasking."
When most people refer to multitasking they mean simultaneously performing two or more things that require mental effort and attention. Examples would include saying we're spending time with family while were researching stocks online, attempting to listen to a CD and answering email at the same time, or pretending to listen to an employee while we are crunching the numbers. What most people refer to as multitasking, I refer to as "switchtasking." Why?
Because the truth is we really cannot do two things at the same time -- we are only one person with only one brain. Neurologically speaking, it has been proven to be impossible. What we are really doing is switching back and forth between two tasks rapidly, typing here, paying attention there, checking our "crackberry" here, answering voicemail there, back and forth, back and forth at a high rate. Keep this up over a long period of time, and you have deeply engrained habits that cause stress and anxiety and dropped responsibilities and a myriad of productivity and focus problems. It's little wonder so many people complain of increasingly short attention spans!
When we speak of multitasking, what we really mean is that we are switchtasking: switching rapidly between one task and another. Yet, each time we switch, no matter how quickly that switch takes place in our mind, there is a cost associated with it. It's an economic term called switching cost -- and the switching cost is high.
When I shared this principle of switchtasking to a CEO of a respected national company, she was astounded. We did a budgeting exercise where we looked at how much time she was spending in a given week. In the process of budgeting her time and looking at how much time she was spending on each activity, we found that she was extremely over budget in what she thought she could accomplish in a week. The truth is, there are only 168 hours in a week, and yet she had put down that she was accomplishing 188 hours worth of work in that week! As we went through the process, we realized where the extra time was coming from. It was from the fact that she was doing research at the same time that she was spending time with her family. When we came across this, I taught her how multitasking was a myth. She was spending time either with one or the other. She was switching rapidly between the two. In reality she was rarely spending any time with her family. She was really doing business research in the presence of her family. There is a happy end to this story, however.
The next day we met, she burst into the room, full of excitement. She exclaimed, "I'll have you know that I spent time with my family last night, and I didn't multitask! I got home and said let's go to dinner. My kids were surprised. But we went to the restaurant and I paid attention to them, and I didn't think about anything else but spending time with my family. At first I don't think they took me seriously. After they realized that I was really spending time with them and paying attention to them, they were excited, and I could tell they really appreciated it."
This CEO had come to understand that not only was switchtasking hurting her business, but it was taking a toll on her family. Once she clearly understood the truth and received some guidance on how to take action, she committed make changes. Her business, her family, and she are all better because of it.
May I offer the following "beginning steps" to help slow down the switchtasking in your life?
1. Take control over technology
Your cell phone ringer (even on vibrate) doesn't need to be on all the time. You can turn off email notification on your computer as well. Become master over the nagging beeps and buzzes by creating some silence.
2. Schedule what you can schedule
Set regular times in the day and week to check your voicemail and email. Let others know that you will be using that schedule so they know when to expect a reply.
3. Focus on the person
When you switchtask when dealing with a computer, you simply lose efficiency. But if you switchtask on a human being, you additionally damage a relationship. Be present, listen carefully, and make sure everything has been taken care of before moving on.
About the Author:
Dave Crenshaw is a time management expert and author of "The Myth of Multitasking: How 'Doing it All' Gets Nothing Done." Go here to learn how to slow down the switchtasking in your life: http://www.davecrenshaw.com

Personal Growth: Yellow Bugs - By Gail Lynn Goodwin

My husband and I are spending time in the Seattle area, house-sitting for a friend. Today I began the drive from Boulder to Seattle, through Wyoming and Montana. It rained most of the morning, but by early afternoon, the scenery was simply spectacular. The colors seemed so alive and vivid, the landscape fresh and new. One particular field of sunflowers simply took my breath away.
I'd driven for more than 700 miles when I started to pay attention to the ribbon of highway in front of me. The road looked just like the ribbon candy that my grandmother used to have in a dish on her coffee table. It was just one ripple after the next, continuing into the distance. Just like I have done so many times before, I picked a spot in the distance, several ripples away, and tried to determine how far it was from my location to that point. Five miles? Ten miles? More? I decided that I would focus on the spot until I reached it and clock the mileage. I've done this so many times on long drives before, or should I say that I've tried to do this.
The problem is, I can't remember one time when I actually remembered to maintain my focus that long. It always seems that a half hour passes and I remember, "Oh yeah, I was looking for that spot... now where was that?" when I'm long past that point. I'm not sure I've EVER remembered and actually clocked it in the many times I've attempted to do this. Something always takes my concentration away.
Today I was determined. I looked at the spot in the distance and thought of it as one of my goals. I thought of this experience as a metaphor for life -- knowing that life always brings interesting things to us to take our focus from our goal. I reaffirmed my commitment to achieving this goal and not forgetting or losing focus. I looked at my odometer and guessed the spot was at least 10-15 miles away. Certainly I can hold my concentration for that long!
It was almost like a meditation in that I was training my mind to stay focused on the goal at the end. Just like in life, if we stay focused on the goal and not the things that appear, we're so much more successful. I was quite proud of myself, going 80 mph for more than 5 minutes and still maintaining my focus on the spot in the distance. I was even saying my goal out loud, talking to myself to reinforce where I was going.
And just as I was beginning to get cocky, wham! I drove into a swarm of flying bugs. Splat, splat, splat all over my windshield. At first I thought it was big raindrops; then I realized that it was yellow bugs! Yuck! It went on for at least a minute or two, but the bugs were constant. I felt badly about smashing them, but there was no alternative. They were everywhere. I had to turn on the windshield wipers to be able to see where I was going. I was so grateful that I wasn't on a motorcycle.
And just that quickly, a hilltop, then a mountain came and went, and about 20 minutes later I realized I'd gone right past my focus point -- without noticing it or remembering it at all. Once again I was distracted with other things -- in this case bugs -- and drove right past it. I never did figure out how far those two points were from one another.
The experience made me think of how many times we do the same thing in life. We'll choose a goal that we want, and six months later we wonder what happened to that path. We're so caught up in another situation that just showed up, that we barely remember what it was we were looking for. My guess is that the yellow bugs of life sideswipe us all. Perhaps your bugs are bills, getting fired from that job, illness, or whatever. Regardless, if we let the bugs take our focus off of the goal, who knows where we'll end up? Try to watch for the bugs in your life today and stay focused on what you want -- not just what shows up.
(Note: Just as I was posting this I noticed a glitch in our site ranking. I immediately went into fix it/panic mode, for only a few seconds. Then I realized it for what it is -- a bug. Just a yellow bug. Instead of changing my focus, I went back to be goal and retained my focus on the end goal. There will always be bugs, but I know I get to choose if I chase them or not!)
About the Author:
Gail Lynne Goodwin, known as the Ambassador of Inspiration, has been lifting people's spirits for years. Motivated by mentors like Jack Canfield, Wayne Dyer, and others, Gail realized the importance of daily morning inspiration in her own life. After years of gathering and sharing some of the best available inspirational wisdom with others, she founded Inspire Me Today in 2008 to make the Best of the Best Inspiration Daily, easily available to the world. Get daily inspiration and your free "Secrets to Soaring" eBook now: http://www.inspiremetoday.com

Check out the Experts page for Gail Lynne Goodwin, the SelfGrowth.com Official Guide to Inspiration.