Here we go, picture your brain being like a ½” garden hose which flows about 24 gallons a minute. You get into a water battle with somebody you can direct all the water at the person. Here comes a second person entering the battle you quickly try to divide the water aimed at both people which puts 12 gallons a minute against each of them. You will lose the battle, all of us only have a certain amount of bandwidth and if we start dividing it up the results are not what we are attempting to achieve.
Look around at our life and all the ways we are attempting unsuccessfully to multitask. You are having a conversation with a possible client and your phone or worst yet your watch, beeps, vibrations and alerts happen at a regular pace. You glance to see who or what is happening moving half your mental bandwidth to check what is going on. This is why we can’t remember things we have divided our attention from our conversation to whatever our device has alerted us.
How many times have you been on a call with somebody and you can tell they are multitasking and not paying attention to you? Reading, emailing or texting while you are attempting to discuss a subject, well guess what good chances they will not remember half the conversation.
Molecular biologist John Medina, author of Brain Rules (2008), notes that “individuals that multitask experience a 40% drop in productivity and they take 50% longer to accomplish a single task whist making up to 50% more errors than workers who focus on a single task at a time.” Boy that sounds familiar!
I fully acknowledge I have the same problem with thought breaking as you do. It’s midafternoon as I am writing this and will share all of my interruptions so far today and hope you do the same. Phone calls, text messages, FB alerts, FB Messenger, emails, LinkedIn alerts, Instagram alerts, Snapchat alerts, Twitter alerts, YouTube alerts, Amazon shipping alerts plus weather, news and sports alerts. Oh, let’s not forget if we wear a device that tells us to move or stand. This is just on my mobile devices not counting what’s happening on my computer!
My goal is to help you switch from Multitasking to Single tasking and ways to improve your overall productivity! Start monitoring your work habits and next week we will discuss “Single Tasking” and show you how to become more productive.
Dick Betts
National Director of Seminars
New Home Co-Broker Academy
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717-860-3107
