The Antidote to the Interruption Age

The information age is over.

We’re now in the interruption age.

Research shows that the amount of information we consume increases exponentially. Think about this: In 2011, on a typical day, we consumed more than 174 newspapers worth of information–5x the amount we consumed in 1986. And that was three years ago!

More, bigger, faster. What’s wrong with that?

Lots, it turns out.

One gigantic problem is the fact that your human brain has not evolved to keep pace with this tidal wave of information. You can still only process so much, so fast.

Not that you haven’t tried to keep up.

You’ve probably adapted by resorting to multitasking. Makes sense, right? If there’s more info to process, why not process multiple streams of it simultaneously?

Works great on paper. Lousy in practice. You see there’s a little issue:

Multitasking doesn’t work.

Study after study has shown that when you try to do multiple things at the same time, getting the tasks done takes longer, and the quality of your work suffers. The human brain isn’t designed to work in parallel. It processes sequentially.

The emotional byproduct of attempts at multitasking? You end up feeling scattered, overwhelmed and distracted.

The solution?

Do only one thing at a time.

Really.

I managed to mortify a group of IT professionals by suggesting this solution last week. You could see the deer in the headlights stare, saying, “But I can’t give up multitasking…it’s how everything gets done around here!”

I dug further. Erwin, an IT manager in the group, said,

If I didn’t keep working through my emails while I was at meetings, I’d never finish processing them. I’m in meetings all day long. Without multitasking, I wouldn’t get anything else done!

Erwin’s response reveals the problem.

What’s Erwin doing booked in back to back meetings all day? How valuable are these meetings (to both him and the others attending) if he shows up to “meet” mainly tuned out?

As Erwin and the group continued, Erwin started to see the flaws in his current work practices:

During these meetings, it’s pretty common that someone’s asked a question about something that was already said. That someone (and yes, sometimes its me) will have to ask them to repeat and rehash the idea because they weren’t paying attention. And that wastes time and drains energy. And also, if I’m honest, the email responses that I compose while I’m in the meeting don’t get my full attention either. So quality suffers there, too. To be honest, I’m just trying to get through the things on my list.

Why do we multitask? Because the anxiety and overwhelm that comes from swimming in a flood of information keeps us from being smart. We think by doing many things at once, we’ll be more productive.

The evidence just isn’t there. Your best strategy: Do One Thing At a Time.

What strategies do you have to help you stay focused on doing just one thing at a time? Join the conversation by leaving a comment below.