Wednesday, June 02, 2010

How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking

Eyeopening stuff from Peter Bregman's essay:

http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/05/how-and-why-to-stop-multitaski.html

WHAT YOU GET FROM NOT MULTITASKING:
- It was delightful. "I never realized how significantly a short moment
of checking my email disengaged me from the people and things right
there in front of me."
- My stress dropped dramatically. Research shows that multitasking isn't
just inefficient, it's stressful.
I made significant progress on challenging projects
- I lost all patience for things I felt were not a good use of my time
"Since I wasn't doing anything else, I got bored much more quickly. I
had no tolerance for wasted time."
- I had tremendous patience for things I felt were useful and enjoyable.
HOW TO DO IT:
- the best way to avoid interruptions is to turn them off. Write in the
morning, disconnect. "most of us shouldn't trust ourselves. "
- Use your loss of patience to your advantage. Create unrealistically
short deadlines. Cut all meetings in half. Give yourself a third of the
time you think you need to accomplish something.


One strategy I thought of just now for helping myself stay on task:
write down on my pad of paper: "I AM writing a blog entry" or "I AM
reanalyzing the gaze data" At least then I can't fool myself into
thinking that doing this other thing is what I'm supposed to be doing.

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