The multi-tasking delusion

2. We allow critically important “need to do” tasks to be pushed aside by lower- priority “nice to do” activities.

3. We overburden ourselves with the number of things to remember, failing to take advantage of easy strategies to lessen the burden on our memories.

4. We don’t build sufficient breaks into our routines to maintain peak productivity.

As a testament to Levitin’s own productivity, he holds positions at two universities on opposite coasts, is author of three bestselling books and, in a previous career, successfully built and sold two online music startups and was the sound engineer for recordings by Carlos Santana and the Grateful Dead.

Levitin’s talk took place at the School of Management at the University of Toronto, where I’ve taught for many years, and was part of a tour to promote his new book, The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.

He followed up with four suggestions for how we can change the way we work to increase our efficiency and effectiveness.

– Forget multi-tasking

The first trap that Levitin discussed was the mistaken belief that we can multi-task, doing two things effectively at the same time. He pointed to research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology neuroscientist Earl Miller that indicates there is no such thing as multi-tasking; our brains can only switch rapidly between sequential tasks. Here’s what Miller has to say about multitasking in his book:

“Trying to concentrate on two tasks causes an overload of the brain’s processing capacity … for example, trying to perform similar tasks such as writing an email and talking on the phone simultaneously leads to competition for the same part of the brain and the brain simply slows down.”

Levitin made two other points about multi-tasking:

First, switching rapidly between tasks is exhausting. That’s why occupations that truly demand multi-tasking, such as flight controllers or simultaneous translators, have mandatory rest breaks each hour.

And, second, don’t kid yourself that you can multi-task without consequences. Research shows that the person on the other end of the phone can tell if you’re reading an email or searching the web while talking.

Levitin’s conclusion: we should train ourselves to focus on one task at a time, even if that means turning away from the computer when talking on the phone.

– Focus on key tasks

Levitin went on to say that in his experience, successful people are not smarter or harder working; rather, they are more disciplined and better at partitioning activities. Of all the people Levitin has ever worked with, he says, the musician Sting stood out as the most focused and disciplined person he’s ever met.

Levitin worked early in his career as personal assistant for the retired CEO of a large construction firm that had built the Hoover Dam and completed major construction projects around the world. This CEO was director of half a dozen public companies, including General Electric Co., Chrysler Corp., Hewlett Packard Co. and Wells Fargo & Co., and was extraordinarily disciplined about his use of time. This former executive refused to take all but the most urgent phone calls, saying that they interfered with his focus; instead, he took one hour each afternoon to return phone calls.

Levitin says that people don’t understand the cost of switching between tasks. Every time you shift from one task to another, you release stress hormones and burn glucose.

That’s why three hours at your desk during a normal work day, shifting from one short meeting to the next, responding to calls and switching between tasks, can leave you feeling exhausted and less productive than you would if you had spent three hours on focused activity on a Sunday afternoon.

Along similar lines, Paul Dolan, a professor at the London School of Economics, has written of an experiment in which groups of students were asked to complete two puzzles – one, a crossword; the other, a sudoku math puzzle. One group of students switched between puzzles every five minutes, the other completed one puzzle before going on to the next. The result: the group that completed the puzzles sequentially completed the puzzles faster and more accurately.

Levitin’s strong recommendation is that if we want to be more productive, we assign 60- to 90-minute blocks of time for important tasks and refuse to allow distractions to interrupt our focus.

He suggests that we turn the sound on our computer off; the “ding” of an incoming email provokes a Pavlovian response: an urge to drop what we’re doing and look at that email, which ruins our concentration and focus in the process.

Instead, Levitin recommends assigning 15-minute blocks of time throughout the day to check and respond to emails. That way, you can deal with emails promptly without disrupting your routine.

– Reduce demands on your brain

Levitin’s third recommendation is to recognize that attention is our scarcest resource and that one way to become more productive is to minimize the time we spend on low-priority uses of our attention.

Some of Levitin’s suggestions:

– Write down notes of key tasks, followup activity and anything else you need to remember. Levitin keeps index cards in his pocket for just that purpose.

As soon as you write something down, your brain is released from the need to remember it and can move on to higher-priority tasks.

– Minimize the number of things you have to remember by putting your wallet and keys in the same place all the time. Levitin refers to this strategy as “off-loading memory drains to our environment.”

If you have to remember to buy milk, put a milk jug by your shoes or put a note on the front door.

Again, the fewer demands you place on your memory, the stronger your ability to focus on higher priorities.

– Follow the “two-minute rule.” Once a day, take 20 minutes to rip through tasks that can be completed in one to two minutes. This will get them off your mind and also provide a satisfying sense of accomplishment and momentum.

– Reduce distractions to the minimum, Levitin says. Prune the automated emails you receive to only those that are of high value. If you find yourself regularly deleting emails from Groupon or the Daily Beast, perhaps it’s time to unsubscribe entirely.

And if you’re really serious about reducing the number of low-priority demands on your brain, you could do what Levitin does. He has three email addresses: one for family and close friends; a second for casual colleagues; and a third that’s the public email address posted on his university websites for everyone else.

– Take regular breaks

Levitin finished his talk by citing research that shows that the brain functions best when it works intensely for 90 minutes and then takes a break.

People who take regular breaks are more productive than those who work continuously. Ideally, you should not spend that 15-minute break scanning the headlines of websites such as www.buzzfeed.com or www.people.com. Rather, get up from your desk and stretch your legs or have a casual chat with a colleague at the coffee machine (being careful not to interrupt their work). If the weather permits, take a walk outside and get some fresh air.

Best of all, take a 10- to 15-minute “power nap” if your work environment allows. Research suggests that a 15-minute nap has the same effect on your energy as an extra 90 minutes of sleep at night.

It may be that only one or two of Levitin’s suggestions apply to your situation, or perhaps they all do. Regardless of how many of these tips are relevant to you, applying new research from brain science can help us all operate more efficiently and effectively.

For more information on becoming more productive, read this Harvard Business Review interview (https://hbr.org/2011/05/being-more-productive) with productivity gurus David Allen, author of Getting Things Done; and Tony Schwartz, author of Be Excellent at Anything. IE

Dan Richards is CEO of Clientinsights (www.clientinsights.ca) in Toronto. For more of Dan’s columns and informative videos, visit www.investmentexecutive.com.

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