{"id":299,"date":"2006-09-13T16:15:51","date_gmt":"2006-09-13T21:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=299"},"modified":"2006-09-13T16:15:07","modified_gmt":"2006-09-13T21:15:07","slug":"the-multitasking-myth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/09\/the-multitasking-myth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Multitasking Myth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.careerjournal.com\/columnists\/cubicleculture\/20060913-cubicle.html?mod=RSS_Career_Journal&#038;cjrss=frontpage\" target=\"_blank\">This CareerJournal.com article<\/a> probably falls under the &#8220;interesting item that only interests me&#8221; category. The article basically debunks the theory that multitasking is effective and efficient. It isn&#8217;t, which is something I have often contended.<\/p>\n<p>Great paragraph at the beginning:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Multitasking, a term cribbed from computers, is an information age creed that, while almost universally sworn by, is more rooted in blind faith than fact. It&#8217;s the wellspring of office gaffes, as well as the stock answer to how we do more with less when in fact we&#8217;re usually doing less with more. What now passes for multitasking was once called <em>not paying attention<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We assess candidates and employees every day and we have yet to find any that truly excel at &#8220;multitasking.&#8221; We&#8217;ve seen many try to do it, but as the author points out, usually they are doing a poor job at two tasks instead of a stellar job at one task.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Multitasking doesn&#8217;t look to be one of the great strengths of human cognition,&#8221; says James C. Johnston, a research psychologist at NASA&#8217;s Ames Research Center. &#8220;It&#8217;s almost inevitable that each individual task will be slower and of lower quality.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And from later in the article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While multitaskers seem to be accomplishing a lot, they are in most cases literally just going through the motions. It is easy for our brain to schedule many different tasks, one after the other. And we&#8217;ll gamely set out doing those tasks, some of which require little extra brain input and some of which require a lot. As a result, says Hal Pashler, director of the Attention and Perception Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego, &#8220;your mouth can be moving while your brain is elsewhere.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, I noticed it to &#8211; Attention and Perception Lab? In California? Nonetheless, I think I have interviewed candidates whose brains were elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This CareerJournal.com article probably falls under the &#8220;interesting item that only interests me&#8221; category. The article basically debunks the theory that multitasking is effective and efficient. It isn&#8217;t, which is something I have often contended. Great paragraph at the beginning: Multitasking, a term cribbed from computers, is an information age creed that, while almost universally sworn by, is more rooted in blind faith than fact. It&#8217;s the wellspring of office gaffes, as well as the stock answer to how we do more with less when in fact we&#8217;re usually doing less with more. What now passes for multitasking was once called not paying attention. We assess candidates and employees every&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/09\/the-multitasking-myth\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-4P","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":494,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/12\/the-multitasking-myth-physical-limitations\/","url_meta":{"origin":299,"position":0},"title":"The Multitasking Myth &#8211; Physical Limitations","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Multitasking is one of those words that has entered business lexicon but should be considered an urban myth. We posted on this topic a few months ago and now I have come across a short Q&A article from CareerJournal.com that addresses the physical aspects of so-called multitasking. First, kudos to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Aptitudes&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Aptitudes","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/aptitudes\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1384,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/fact-or-fiction-about-the-google-generation\/","url_meta":{"origin":299,"position":1},"title":"Fact Or Fiction About The Google Generation?","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 18, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't heard that moniker until now - \"Google Generation.\"\u00a0 These are kids born after 1993 so they are a handful of year away from hitting the workplace.\u00a0 Yet, there is some interesting research out there that debunks some conventional wisdom and reinforces others. First the debunking (emphasis mine): It's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/05\/how-to-manage-a-staff-of-young-employees\/","url_meta":{"origin":299,"position":2},"title":"How to Manage a Staff of Young Employees","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 20, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We have a bit of an impromptu theme this week starting with our article released Monday. Generations X and Y are popular topics these days. I have been catching up to some older articles and came across this one from allbusiness.com which is the title of this post. Overall, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":939,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/05\/the-boss-doesnt-believe-you\/","url_meta":{"origin":299,"position":3},"title":"The Boss Doesn&#8217;t Believe You","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Funny article here from Inc.com about a CareerBuilder.com survey - Survey: Late Employees Lie. As many as one in four employees admit to making up fake excuses for arriving late to work, a new study reveals. Amazing that they invested the resources in running a survey on this topic. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1538,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/04\/the-urgency-of-hiring\/","url_meta":{"origin":299,"position":4},"title":"The Urgency Of Hiring","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"April 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"BusinessWeek.com has a terrific article about executive recruiting that applies to more than just executive positions.\u00a0 Sales hiring mirrors the same issues from the article. The pull quote: Not surprisingly, corporate bosses usually want to play a role in interviewing and assessing top candidates' experience, qualifications, and fit with senior\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":229,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/08\/job-titles-attract-workers\/","url_meta":{"origin":299,"position":5},"title":"Job Titles Attract Workers","author":"Lee Fratzke","date":"August 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I read a recent newsletter article from Ragan's Management Resources titled \"Use job titles to attract and reward workers\" (sorry, no link available). The president of a service company ran an experiement. He offered job candidates a choice between having the title of \"sales manager\" or the title of \"salesperson\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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