Multitasking notes

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Multitasking notes

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Does multitasking improve productivity or result in poorer quality work taking longer overall? The obvious answer: It depends. Under some circumstances, multitasking means that several tasks each only deserving partial attention can be worked on simultaneously, while under others, multitasking may damage the quality of work. A librarian at a frontline reference desk will almost necessarily multitask, not only to deal with different kinds of reference requests but to make use of the time when no requests are at hand.

If multitasking can distract you, the quality of journalism about multitasking may drive you to tears. Notes below include some of that. One overall message:

  • Take all "scientific results" offered here with more than a grain of salt. Assume that most reporting overstates the actual evidence and universalizes narrow conclusions.

This roundup includes a variety of notes on multitasking (and the related "information overload") in general. Multitasking and librarians focuses on comments by library people and items that relate directly to libraries and librarians. Most items are notes by Walt Crawford from cited and linked external sources, except for items with other credit lines.

What productivity studies really show

Notes by Walt Crawford based on this post by Gina Trapani at lifehacker.
Every time a new research study around personal productivity and office culture appears, we dutifully post the "proof" that information overload, email distractions, and multitasking are keeping you from getting work done—but are they?

Some of the studies are noted later in these notes. Meanwhile, this critique takes a different stance--one undermined somewhat by the fact that it's burning down a straw man: Defending the use of email at all, against a group of studies that suggest not always handling email immediately, a quite different issue.

Excerpts and notes:

...The constant reappearance of these studies in mainstream media over the last few years do make one question what's going on. It's the information and email overload studies that trip my BS detector the most. While I agree that an overstuffed inbox and constant email monitoring can kill your day, this $700 billion a year cost to the American economy makes me raise one eyebrow high in doubt. Did researchers factor in how much time email actually saves people who use it? I get dozens of messages per day and spend a good amount of time managing all of them. I'm the first to complain about what a time sink email can be. However, if I had to get on the phone or mail a letter to [coworkers] every time I wanted to tell them something? Nothing would get done around here. $700 billion a year lost after a gazillion gained leaves us in the black in the end.

Straw man destroyed. The zero number of studies saying "don't use email at all" are hereby discredited. And, since this writer agrees that constant email monitoring can kill your day...well, what's to say?

The longer I do this, the more I suspect that a good part of the "information overload" story is a myth cooked up by folks who don't know how to use the internet well in order to demonize something they don't understand. I get more done via email and surfing the web than my parents ever did using phones and libraries, even when I'm having a bad day and switch to my email application the moment I see a new message notification.

Setting aside the typical and unfortunate dismissal of libraries as irrelevant, this is a fine ad hominem or "you just don't get it" argument. That last phrase says it, though: It's about letting interruptions take over, not about avoiding technology altogether.

Personal productivity is indeed personal, so always take study result findings around digital life and the ensuing prescriptive solutions with more than one grain of salt. When you choose the solutions to implement in your life, make sure they resolve problems you have, not 98% of faceless office workers somebody commissioned by some company polled somewhere.

Absolutely right.

In defense of distraction

Notes by Walt Crawford on this article by Sam Anderson, published May 17, 2009 in New York Magazine.

After a long, peculiar opening paragraph trying to get readers to set aside all the usual distractions, Anderson stakes his opening claim:

Over the last several years, the problem of attention has migrated right into the center of our cultural attention. We hunt it in neurology labs, lament its decline on op-ed pages, fetishize it in grassroots quality-of-life movements, diagnose its absence in more and more of our children every year, cultivate it in yoga class twice a week, harness it as the engine of self-help empires, and pump it up to superhuman levels with drugs originally intended to treat Alzheimer’s and narcolepsy. Everyone still pays some form of attention all the time, of course—it’s basically impossible for humans not to—but the currency in which we pay it, and the goods we get in exchange, have changed dramatically.

Then, after [over?]stating some of the doomcrying about short attention spans and multitasking, Anderson trots out the usual responses to any skepticism about changes:

This doomsaying strikes me as silly for two reasons. First, conservative social critics have been blowing the apocalyptic bugle at every large-scale tech-driven social change since Socrates’ famous complaint about the memory-destroying properties of that newfangled technology called “writing.” (A complaint we remember, not incidentally, because it was written down.) And, more practically, the virtual horse has already left the digital barn. It’s too late to just retreat to a quieter time. Our jobs depend on connectivity. Our pleasure-cycles—no trivial matter—are increasingly tied to it. Information rains down faster and thicker every day, and there are plenty of non-moronic reasons for it to do so. The question, now, is how successfully we can adapt.

There they are: Other complaints were wrong, therefore this one also is and It's inevitable.

Tempting as it might be to throw in the towel, you may want to proceed through the 6,200-word article (if you can pay attention long enough--at least online, it's split over many pages, making it more difficult to read--and although you can call up a "print version" that's all in one piece, it suffers from character-substitution fallout, with lots of question-mark diamonds where dashes and quote marks should be).

A few notes from the article:

  • "Over the last twenty years, [David] Meyer and a host of other researchers have proved again and again that multitasking, at least as our culture has come to know and love and institutionalize it, is a myth. When you think you’re doing two things at once, you’re almost always just switching rapidly between them, leaking a little mental efficiency with every switch."
  • "American office workers don’t stick with any single task for more than a few minutes at a time; if left uninterrupted, they will most likely interrupt themselves. Since every interruption costs around 25 minutes of productivity, we spend nearly a third of our day recovering from them. We keep an average of eight windows open on our computer screens at one time and skip between them every twenty seconds. When we read online, we hardly even read at all--our eyes run down the page in an F pattern, scanning for keywords. When you add up all the leaks from these constant little switches, soon you’re hemorrhaging a dangerous amount of mental power. People who frequently check their e-mail have tested as less intelligent than people who are actually high on marijuana. Meyer guesses that the damage will take decades to understand, let alone fix." (So for each of us who keeps one to two windows open, someone else is keeping fourteen to sixteen open for that average of eight? Really?)
  • According to Winifred Gallagher, the most promising solution to "our attention problem" is meditation.
  • Anderson actively embraces distractions but excuses himself, because "The Internet is basically a Skinner box engineered to tap right into our deepest mechanisms of addiction." He argues that focus "can actually be just as problematic as ADHD"--that deep focusers may be hampered by having too much attention.
  • And, of course, "digital natives" are fundamentally different--their brains are being redesigned for effective multitasking.

Those are only samples from a long article--worth reading, if not necessarily very convincing.

Tackling information overload

by Leslie Dillon from Leader's Digest May 2009

What’s information overload? Quite simply, it’s just “too much of a good thing.” Information Today’s Paula Hane “attended” a webcast recently on knowledge worker management and productivity, where she learned “that information overload costs the U.S. economy a minimum of $900 billion a year in lost productivity and reduced innovation.” Here’s how knowledge workers spend their days:

  • 28%: Unnecessary interruptions plus “recovery time” to get back to work
  • 25%: Creating content — productive!
  • 20%: Meetings — some productive, some not
  • 15%: Searching for information (an estimated 50% of searches fail)
  • 12%: Thinking and reflecting

Recent research has revealed that people spend an averge of only about three minutes on a task before they switch tasks or are interrupted. Physically co-located workers have more interruptions and spend longer amounts of time on peripheral tasks.

How do managers get staff to change these behaviors? The first step is getting people to understand how their actions impact others. Then try these techniques:

  • Avoid email “Reply alls.”
  • Think before interrupting others-in person, by phone, or by email.
  • Minimize distractions by turning off email, not answering the phone if it interrupts an important task, and carving out uninterrupted chunks of time.

How to deal with the onslaught of incoming content? Let tools do the work: Use alerts, RSS feeds, organizers, search tools, etc. You are the one who controls the volume of information. Unsubscribe from lists, drop irrelevant feeds, use smart filtering, and “skim like mad.”

Here are some suggestions for managing information overload from Xerox scientists who study the future of work:

  1. Breathe. Schedule breaks.
  2. Simplify your schedule. Schedule meetings on specific days; leave others free.
  3. Back it up.
  4. Declutter your desktop.
  5. Touch it once and respond, file, or delete.
  6. Forget the free stuff (choose quality over quantity).
  7. Use your tools, e.g., your smartphone, RSS, etc.
  8. Deal with things as they arise.

With 86,300 employees, Intel sees information overload as a serious problem, estimating the impact of information overload on each knowledge worker at up to eight hours a week. The company continuously looks at new work behaviors that can help reduce the costly impact.

You might be interested in new application called Smart Desktop, currently out in beta. It claims to be able to automatically organize your information into projects, but, the cool part, says Hane, is that Smart Desktop automatically records the time accumulated as you work, letting you create detailed project and time management reports to audit your time.

(Paula J. Hane, “Tackling information overload,” Information Today Newsbreaks, May 5, 2009.)

Editor's note: If those percentages are right--always questionable--they add up to 40% productive time, unless you don't believe thinking and reflecting matter for “knowledge workers.” That's remarkably good, all things considered. If you believe knowledge workers should just do without thinking and reflecting--that's another set of problems.

Are you chasing two rabbits?

by Leslie Dillon from Leader's Digest April 2009

Heroes emerge in challenging times “because of the enormity of what they achieved in spite of the odds stacked against them.” Are there heroes in business? Babson College president Leonard Schlesinger’s book, The Real Heroes of Business, says yes, but not among the CEOs. If we can’t find heroes at the top, where are they? They’re on the front lines, where they “make the impossible seem possible with the ease and calm that comes about only through laser-sharp focus.”

This may be the time to stop multitasking. Consider the old Chinese saying: “If you try and chase two rabbits, you end up catching none.” Sharpening our focus and our skills may be the best route through today’s challenges.

Those “who prove their mettle in these times will not only excel at their present jobs, but also secure their future by establishing a solid foundation for a successful career. They will be the stars who rise in the clearer skies to come.”

(Vineet Nayar, “Looking for a few business heroes,” Harvard Business blogs, Apr 20, 2009.)

Multitasking improving problem solving?

A December 9, 2007 post by Drs. Eide at the Eide neurolearning blog proposes that "at least in some cases, less brain work is used for solving two tasks at once, then the two tasks separately (underadditivity)." It includes a striking chart showing faster completion of two tasks through "dual-tasking." The post has been cited elsewhere as a demonstration that multitasking is a good thing.

On one hand, given the qualifier "at least in some cases," the assertion is very likely true. On the other hand, the details offered are not the results of any study, and it's not clear that the chart is based on any evidence at all. It's all part of a proposal--a set of hypotheses laving to do with using different "cortical areas."

Drs. Eide say:

These are interesting ideas that have direct implications for classroom and lifelong learning. A remarkably little-mentioned topic in educational pedagogy is learning efficiency, yet at least when we see students who are have academic struggles of some sort, there are often obvious signs of where the failure to learn took place.

But at least based on this post, these are ideas, not the results of research.

Other posts on the Eide blog leave similar gaps. For example, "Balancing multi-tasking and distraction" (August 2, 2008) comes to conclusions that I would agree with in general:

Distractions are not alike. And tasks aren't either. If your distracting task is somewhat challenging (e.g. trying to listen to your spouse discuss the merits of various cell phone plans while you're driving for the first time in Boston), and perhaps the modes are different (watching, reacting, listening), learning and extrapolation are particularly likely to suffer. On the other hand, motor sequence tasks that may become automatic, may be particularly well-suited toward implicit instruction or non-competing distractions.

But they get there by citing "two studies," one suggesting that in some cases not listening to a teacher (for "motor sequence tasks") might yield better results, another showing that "distraction by a second task impaired subjects' ability to extrapolate from their learning." One tiny problem: They cite the second study--but not the first. Of course, it's a blog post, not a journal article--but the (uncited) study that favors multitasking gets an impressive chart, where the (cited) study that questions multitasking does not.

What makes information workers productive?

by Leslie Dillon from Leader's Digest May 2008

What increases productivity in knowledge workers? Multitasking! Research has shown that information technology lets employees work on more projects at once, thus increasing their productivity. Heavier users of information technology don't necessarily complete projects faster; they just juggle more projects at once.

But beware! There's a limit to that productivity. The study also found that "the relationship between output and multitasking formed a curve that was concave, like an upside-down U." After a certain point, taking on "more tasks makes workers less productive." People are able to juggle only a limited number of tasks effectively. Excessive "multitasking may result in the workflow equivalent of a traffic jam."

(Sinan Aral, Erik Brynjolfsson and Marshall W. Van Alstyne, "What makes information workers productive," MIT Sloan Management Review, (49:2) Winter 2008.)

Multitasking worse than marijuana?

A 2005 survey of 1,100 Britons, reported here, claims to show that "workers distracted by phone calls, e-mails and text messages suffer a greater loss of IQ than a person smoking marijuana." Constant interruptions "reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic." Specific findings:

  • Almost two out three people check their electronic messages out of office hours and when on holiday
  • Half of all workers respond to an e-mail within 60 minutes of receiving one
  • One in five will break off from a business or social engagement to respond to a message.
  • Nine out of 10 people thought colleagues who answered messages during face-to-face meetings were rude, while three out of 10 believed it was not only acceptable, but a sign of diligence and efficiency.

The CNN report noted here--and a lot of other media coverage at the time--bases the "IQ loss" on a supposed study by Dr. Glenn Wilson at King's College London University of 80 workers--but, as discussed in this September 25, 2005 post by Mark Liberman at Language log, that may be bad reporting. Responding to Liberman's questions, Dr. Wilson says he did an in-house experiment with eight workers, not the 80 reported elsewhere, and noted the "temporary distraction effect" of emails and cell phone calls on the workers' abilities to solve "matrices type problems," even when the workers were instructed to ignore the interruptions.

Liberman notes the problem with journalism as it relates to science: Too few outlets include an account of what the research actually is. (The daily paper I read is an exception, and David Perlman continues to receive awards for his science writing, but it's all too clear that few online or offline media outlets will devote space and time to summarizing actual research.) As Liberman says:

When a piece of scientific research comes to the attention of the media, those who know it best should make available a simple account of what the research is and what it means (or doesn't mean). If misinterpretations become rampant -- which is just another way of saying, if there's widespread media interest -- then it's in everyone's interest for the authors to address the misrepresentations directly.

Glancing at a range of media reports on the HP-commissioned survey and study, I see something worse: Unlike the CNN report, many of them conflate the 1,100 people surveyed and the eight people studied to report that Wilson studied 1,100 people--which might be quite convincing if true, but is off by two orders of magnitude.

Eleven minutes before the next interruption

As reported in this January 2006 post at lifehacker, a study of busy office workers (done by the University of California) found that the workers were only able to fcus on a task for an average of eleven minutes before they were interrupted--and that it took an average of 25 minutes to return to the original task, if they managed to do so at all that day.

In this case, workers were juggling an average of 12 projects each, described by one subject as "constant, multi-tasking craziness." Do any projects ever get done in such chaos, let alone done well? That's less clear. What is clear: The study (not linked to) is hardly conclusive, since it involved "a random sample of 36 office workers."

Comments on the post are interesting and revealing. One manager of a large department within a manufacturing company says that he doubts if he ever spends more than ten minutes on one subject between seven a.m. and 4:30 p.m. "To compensate we both come in at 6 and I usually stay until 5:30 or 6. Those off hours are when things actually get accomplished, the on shift time is actually just one big 9 hour fire drill." A technical writer notes the virtue of their job: "I only have one document to write at a time, and nobody wants to talk to me because I invariably give them some writing or reviewing to do." Fewer interruptions, single task. Another says 11 minutes sounds about right--and uses an application that pops up every ten minutes to remind them to "get back to it" (doesn't that count as a new interruption?).

Multitasking makes you less productive

This March 25, 2007 New York Times article notes "several research reports, both recently published and not yet published," with some consistent advice:

The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car.

A University of Michigan cognitive scientist, David E. Meyer, said "Multitasking is going to slow you down, increasing the chances of mistakes" and “Disruptions and interruptions are a bad deal from the standpoint of our ability to process information.” René Marois, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt, says the brain has its limits: “[A] core limitation is an inability to concentrate on two things at once.”

Do young people multitask better? Maybe not. A study at Oxford University (asking people to translate images to numbers using a simple code) found that 18- to 21-year-olds did 10% better ahn 35- to 39-year-olds if there were no interruptions--but if there were interruptions (phone call, IM, SMS) the older group matched the younger group in speed and accuracy. Interpretation? One researcher believes that "older" (I won't call a 39-year-old "old") people think more slowly but are better able to block out interruptions--and that researcher has learned to check email less often.

A study of Microsoft workers found that they "took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites." The researcher says if it's that bad at Microsoft, it has to be bad elsewhere too.

One business research study estimated that professionals and office workers spend 28% of their time on interruptions and recovery (and includes the usual nonsensical Big Number, not repeated here, on how much money this all costs).

Advice? Don't check email more than once an hour (and don't let it beep at you). Turn off instant messaging when you need to focus on a task. You may find some music improves your concentration--but avoid songs with lyrics.

The myth of multitasking

This August 25, 2008 post at lifehacker interviews Dave Crenshaw, author of The Myth of Multitasking: How "Doing It All" Gets Nothing Done. Crenshaw differentiates between "background tasking" (watching TV while you're exercising) and "switchtasking" (trying to work on two tasks at once). The post says:

Crenshaw's on a mission to reduce distractions, interruptions, and fire-fighting at work, and create environments that let employees see through tasks with their full attention before moving onto the next thing.

Some of Crenshaw's tips (expanded in the post):

  • Take control over technology. (Turn off your cell phone, turn off email notification, give yourself some silence.)
  • Schedule what you can schedule. (Set regular times to check voicemail and email.)
  • Focus on the person. (You only lose productivity when you switchtask on a computer. Do it with a person and you damage the relationship.)

Looking at the comments, most agreed with Crenshaw--but one (who couldn't be bothered to spell correctly in a two-sentence email) talked of the "miss opportunities" you have if you don't instantly answer phone calls and emails and another claimed "it is well known" that inability to multitask is a "genetic defect."

Continuous partial attention

Linda Stone of Microsoft coined this term in the 1990s--and has mixed feelings about it now. You'll find Linda Stone's thoughts on attention and specifically, continuous partial attention here. Stone differentiates CPA from multitasking:

When we multi-task, we are motivated by a desire to be more productive and more efficient. We're often doing things that are automatic, that require very little cognitive processing. We give the same priority to much of what we do when we multi-task--we file and copy papers, talk on the phone, eat lunch--we get as many things done at one time as we possibly can in order to make more time for ourselves and in order to be more efficient and more productive.

On the other hand, continuous partial attention is "to pay partial attention--CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to be a LIVE node on the network. Another way of saying this is that we want to connect and be connected. We want to effectively scan for opportunity and optimize for the best opportunities, activities, and contacts, in any given moment.... It is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any place behavior that involves an artificial sense of constant crisis."

Stone does not argue that CPA is always a bad thing.

Like so many things, in small doses, continuous partial attention can be a very functional behavior. However, in large doses, it contributes to a stressful lifestyle, to operating in crisis management mode, and to a compromised ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively.

Those are brief excerpts. Visit the link to read more on generations, managing your time (blocking out interruption-free time, paying full attention to other people--but also making effective use of the full range of communication tools), individual preferences and more.

Related articles

  • Multitasking and librarians - Notes by library people about multitasking, continuous partial attention and information overload.
  • Generational issues - Rightly or wrongly, discussions of multitasking tend to bring up generational issues.

Your turn: Talk about it

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