Multi-Tasking Hindering Productivity?

[merrijoy]

An interesting read - is work and therefore society being hurt by all the multi-tasking we "need" to do?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35689822/ns/business-small_business//

A few points that stood out to me

1 - A Microsoft study suggests it takes a worker 15 minutes to refocus after an interruption

2 - Ten years ago, Harvard Business School''s Leslie Perlow famously chronicled the interruption of a high-tech software company. Its engineers were interrupted so often they had to work nights and weekends

The collective We are told to incessantly check your email - didn''t you see that? Didn''t you read that email?

I have been reading PS less during the day and it seems my capacity to concentrate and therefore create a few results I am proud of has grown. I have noticed where I am now, people want to take on the less challenging tasks - I truly think this could be because they can not concentrate because they have to incessantly check their email. It seems more and more people nowadays classify themselves as ADD (and anxiety-ridden) - myself included. Maybe it is really technology and the "need" to multi-task causing this.

 

[Arkteia]

Good article, but the article about Texas schools promoting creationism over evolution concerned me more. Good-bye, Texas! Won''t ever come to visit!

Nothing against religion, I am a member of a congregation myself, but science is our best hope in battle against cancer, Alzheimer''s and other plagues.

 

[PumpkinPie]

I completely agree that multi-tasking is a terrible habit - but I seem to be addicted to it too! I try not to, but I find I can''t even eat without doing something else too like reading .. I got into it when I was a student and can''t seem to get out

 

[Arkteia]

Read it this morning...sorry for getting off-tangent yesterday. Just wanted to remind you of Julius Caesar, who used to ride a horse, read and dictate his memoirs to a scribe riding next to him. Obviously he was a VERY successful multi-tasker, so it may not always be bad.

 

[joelly]

hmmmm.....I''m a multi-tasker and recently got a big raise so I think my company finds me pretty productive.