Are you a victim of multitasking, and do you understand what it truly means?

How often have you heard someone say I am fantastic at "multitasking"? Have you always thought that was a good thing? I have never thought about the entire topic, but I have now read Devora Zach's book "Singletasing: Get More Done—One Thing at a Time." and it did open my eyes and gave some valuable insights to why multitasking is really not the way to go if you want to be effective. The book is not new (published in 2015), but I claim it is even more relevant today than in 2015. It goes to the heart of our typical lives, where we are "trying to do a million things and getting bombarded with emails, social media feeds, messages, etc."

I could not put the book down until I had consumed it from start to end. What impacted me was that I could identify quite a few things in the book that fit how I have been doing things (not in a good way) and how easily we get distracted when we are supposed to focus on one thing. The theme is that "your mind can't be two places at once." The claim is (rightfully so) that many of us have become addicted to the popular, enticing, dangerously misleading drug of multitasking.

Zack marshals convincing neuroscientific evidence to prove that you can’t do more by tackling several things simultaneously—it’s an illusion. There is a better way to deal with all the information and interruptions that bombard us today. We are all guilty of trying to kill two birds with one stone in the race to finish our endless to-do lists. But in Singletasking: Getting More Done, One Thing at a Time, Zack successfully proves that the more we try to juggle, the more we slow ourselves down, produce inferior work, and create more stress. With this book, she puts individuals back in control of their day instead of just reacting to endless stimuli. The book states the following about multitasking:

"Multitasking blocks the flow of information into short-term memory. Data that doesn't make it into short-term memory cannot be transferred into long-term memory for recall. Therefore, multitasking lowers our ability to accomplish tasks"

It is important to understand that the concept of multitasking can be misunderstood. A person who says he/she is good at multitasking could also mean that once a task is done, he/she will move into another task. Engaging in two non-competing activities when at least one is automatic (we don't need to think about it) is generally harmless; pursuing competing tasks can exact a very high toll. In the case of this book and multitasking, the following example illustrates what multitasking is:

I am sitting and writing a report and will check Facebook every five minutes. I also take calls during my report writing, and if I am in a physical office setting, I let Jack or Mary bump into my office to talk about the latest football game. That is a bad form of multitasking.

Zach bases her findings on hard evidence from academic and other studies, which "opened my eyes." As a business owner with different projects, it is an ongoing challenge to "juggle" with tasks, and what the book prescribes is solid actions that you can take to manage your increasingly addictive task list and how to deal with people in your office when you want to focus on your work. The advice is not rocket science, but as humans, we tend to forget to stop and think about how we work and what makes our working environment potentially more bearable.

Have you run into people who are constantly busy, and when you talk to them, they "seem to be listening," but you know they are not? Have you been in meetings where people are glued to their laptops or mobile phones and pretend to be listening, but you know they are not? Have you sat having dinner glued to your phone and not paid attention to the discussion at the dinner table? Are you constantly checking your text messages while you are speaking with somebody?

Zack’s outlined methods for single-tasking make the book invaluable. For example, she suggests creating a “Parking Lot” list to quarantine distracting tasks that pop up. She also cautions against using a smartphone as an alarm clock to avoid interruptions by the phone’s myriad notifications of emails and texts. She also advocates clustering similar tasks, like emailing, to three deliberate times a day to avoid continual distraction.

As Zack observes, far too many of us suffer from “scattered brain syndrome.” We forget people’s names right after learning them, we have to reread passages repeatedly, and we end the day feeling overwhelmed by all the things left undone. Singletasking incorporates a rejuvenating mindfulness that not only lets us get more things done but lets us enjoy “beautiful days,” as Zack writes, “one sunbeam at a time.”

The book has many great examples you can relate to and situations you might have encountered—I certainly have. It is an excellent reminder for young professionals getting into work life and leaders who have forgotten to pay attention to their team members and care about them when they have something to say.

I strongly recommend this book if you sometimes struggle with competing tasks or assignments and try to "juggle" them all at once. I learned a lot and will use some of the advice in my upcoming work.

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Yours,

Dr. Petri I. Salonen