Did you know that only 2.5% of people can multitask efficiently? The rest of us, however, although we may think we’re good at it, are not. A study done by the University of London found that multitasking during cognitive tasks actually decreases your IQ to someone who has stayed up an entire night with no sleep. Another study conducted by the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance showed that it lowers your brain’s efficiency as it forces it to change gears while switching between tasks. Multitasking divides our attention and requires brain power to switch back and forth. The more complicated the task, the longer it takes our brains to make the adjustments, lowering its performance as brain cells respond slower and slower each time.
Most of us have grown up in hussle culture, where we’ve been told that getting more done in a smaller amount of time is how we should work. This type of thinking couldn’t be further from the truth. To produce quality work over quantity of work, undivided cognitive attention on a single job is necessity. Unfortunately, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Quality will always suffer in quantity and quality can only be obtained without quantity. Monotasking is what we’re hardwired for. When the attention is focused on a single duty, the left and right prefrontal cortex work together in unity. Scientist from Paris have discovered that our brain will literally split the left the right prefrontal cortex when performing two separate workloads at once. This causes us to make up to three times more mistakes and makes us to forget details of all work done simultaneously. Of course, we’re talking about complex tasks here, not listening to music while washing the dishes. To top that off, we only have a limited amount of attention that we can give to things in a day so, attention fatigue is the real deal. Guard it with great regard.
While multitasking is necessary to some degree in the tech savvy world that we live in today, we can take steps to improve our focus throughout our day. Start by dedicating specific chunks of time to each particular task. Take 30 minutes for one thing before moving on to the next. If you have to schedule each slot out in your calendar, do it. It will be worth it. Second, stop constantly checking your emails. Studies show that you’ll be less stressed and able to focus for longer periods of time. You’ll also get less screen time in and work more efficiently. As business leaders it’s important to teach and nurture your teams’ monotasking abilities. Organization, communication and simplicity will make for a more productive employee. Help them prioritize their work tasks and give them small breaks throughout their day to stay refreshed. Face to face communications are key to explaining expectations clearly. Be the kind of boss that promotes less multitasking and high-quality work! Advocate for masters of their craft, not the jack of all trades.
