Don’t Multitask

How’d you like to get an extra 40 percent of productive time at work and maybe even save lives?

Don’t multitask.

Despite claims that texting during meetings or operating a tablet and smartphone simultaneously is working smart, science says otherwise:

• One research study found that switching repeatedly between tasks causes brief ‘mental blocks” while the brain recalibrates itself for the new activity. The cumulative effect of switching consumes up to 40 percent of someone’s productive time.

• Some other studies claim multitasking can actually cost 15 IQ points and even shrinks your brain.

In project management (or any office environment), multitasking causes poor focus, sloppy planning and implementation, or emails with typos. It can put a career or a project off the rails…but in other circumstances, it can kill.

Multitasking behind the wheel – known as distracted driving – claims more than 3,000 lives a year and causes hundreds of thousands of injuries.

So as summer comes to an end and school begins, make sure all the drivers in your family monotask on the road; no eating, drinking, texting, phone calls, putting on makeup or even changing clothes while driving.

Don’t roll the dice just to save a few seconds or minutes. You might just save an eternity that way.