Multitasking is Bad for Business

When you ‘pay’ attention, you make a choice to focus on something specific. In that moment, this becomes the centre of your attention. The price that you ‘pay’ for that attention is that everything else around you loses focus.

For example, if you concentrate on your left hand then you automatically tune out from the sound of the traffic or the radio; you’ll lose sight of the text on your screen, and you’ll no longer be aware of the sensation of pressure on your body from sitting or standing. It’s as if your conscious mind has switched off from all this background activity. However your body acts unconsciously, taking in all the physical information which your brain’s sensory cortex is continually monitoring and storing. This part of the brain processes sensory information simultaneously, it never switches off but processes the data while you direct your conscious thoughts elsewhere.

We mistake this involuntary activity for multitasking – doing two or more things at the same time. The fact is we can do two physical things at the same time, we just can’t think about two things simultaneously. Conscious attention is an aspect of the thinking part of the brain, the neocortex, and sadly it only has one channel. Which means, in reality, you can only focus on one thing at a time.  Multitasking, therefore, is a myth.

How did this myth evolve? Neuroscientists say that we fool ourselves into believing we can multitask because it really does seem that way. What you’re actually doing is switching attention your rapidly from one focus to another. Very rapidly indeed. Perhaps I’m splitting hairs, you might ask? Not at all. Attempting to multitask is a waste of time and effort and is ultimately counterproductive in our busy working lives.  Let me show you why.

We’ve all done this: you’re writing an email and your phone rings.  You answer the call and begin a conversation while still trying to write that email. You believe that this is multitasking, and efficient.  Wrong.

The first problem with talking on the phone while answering emails, is that when you switch from one focus to another, your mind ‘blinks’. During this attentional blink, a gap forms in the information you’re trying to absorb. You then find yourself re-reading the same line in the email because you didn’t take it all in the first time, or perhaps you miss something that was said on the phone. At best, you have to ask the caller (or your client!) to repeat it, or at worst, miss entirely what might be an important detail.

Additionally, you have a lag in your processing of information since your short-term memory takes a little while to recall the details of the email. All in all, this makes your attempt at multitasking less efficient than if you focused on one job followed by the other.

Have you ever finished that phone conversation on your hands-free phone while driving on a busy road and later realised that you don’t remember anything about the drive? Including the road conditions, stopping at a junction, changing gear and navigating other traffic.

I’ve done this myself, and it’s scary to realise that I was not paying attention to something that can easily kill other road users and me. It is a classic example of ‘multitasking’ that is proven to reduce the performance of BOTH tasks.

It’s not about skill either. Even highly experienced drivers, for whom driving is an automatic activity, still need to pay constant attention to the road.  You can flip attention between the two activities, but talking on the phone while driving does diminish your road awareness. Fact.

Here’s another fact: the continual switching of attention when you’re trying to multitask, gives you a little mental jolt as you switch your focus, This creates an attentional ‘blink’ and requires your brain to work harder to catch up. It’s akin to being on guard and looking out for danger. The buzz you might get from this so-called multitasking activity is not from a sense of accomplishment but actually as a result of an increase in anxiety!

Overloading your attention span causes you to make simple errors, such as forgetting people’s names, and leads to diminished self-control. Constant mental stress overloads the nervous system with adrenaline and cortisol and increases anxiety and worry that can eventually lead to burnout.

The other side of this coin is that focusing intensely on a single task has a calming effect on the brain. A great example of this is the effect of meditation with a single-pointed focus on your breath. Your brain is calmed, slows and opens to being more creative. The peak-performance flow state, prized in both athletics and business, is also a result of one single focus. Flow state that cannot be attained with split attention.

Feeling worthy and valued is the most significant things we need emotionally as human beings. The smallest of distractions, dressed up as multitasking, can reveal more about us than we know.

How many times are we guilty of the following everyday multitasking sin? You’re in conversation with a colleague or team member and your phone bleeps into life informing you that you have received a text message. For the briefest of moments you glance at your phone to check the text.

Your glance says loud and clear that the text (and by implication the sender) is more important than the person you’re talking to. That’s why it’s so irritating when we’re the one left hanging; we’re being told we’re unimportant.  A terrible way to conduct work relationships all round.

By contrast, ignoring that text and giving the person in front of you your fullest attention tells them that you value them. And we crave a sense of being worthwhile and valued. This action alone is a hallmark of great leadership.

Consider the leader who doesn’t look up, but continues typing when a team member needs to talk to them. Before long, the team member will stop talking, because it’s clear they’re not being listened to. One CEO once confided in me that he used to conduct his executive team meetings while responding to emails, saying ‘keep talking, I’m listening’. But his listening was partial and superficial and clearly he was showing his team they were not important in his eyes, however unintentionally.

By believing that multitasking was making him more efficient, he was devaluing his team. When that behaviour propagates through the company, as it inevitably does, then job satisfaction and morale decrease across the whole company.

What makes people feel valued is freely giving them your ‘undivided attention’. Giving someone your undivided attention means listening without distraction, and finally giving up on the illusion that we gain something by multitasking. The truth is, we don’t.  The question is, how can we avoid the temptation of unwitting distractions in our business lives and ensure that we’re all giving each other this undivided attention?

By maintaining a single focus of attention, you comprehend tasks and information faster and consequently perform better. You’re calmer and are less stressed. Most importantly you foster good working relationships that build strong, connected and high-performing teams.

Here are some ways to kick multitasking into touch and to keep everyone’s mind on the business to hand:

Ultimately, the idea that we work more efficiently by multitasking needs to be thrown in the bin and discarded for the modern myth that it is.

Tara Halliday: Transformational Coach, Best-selling author, Speaker