Praise for The Myth of Multitasking

“In Dave Crenshaw’s book The Myth of Multitasking: How ‘Doing It All’ Gets Nothing Done, he demonstrates how multitasking is, in fact, a lie that actually wastes time, energy, and money. Most of all, it robs us of life and our relationships with others.”

—Chuck Norris, world-renowned actor and martial artist

“We live in an ADHD world. And I’m glad we do. But as Dave understands, the secret is to do one important thing at a time, with focus. If you can take the time to focus on his message, you’ll be glad you did.”

—Seth Godin, author of The Dip

“Dave’s book is a time-management classic and a must-read for professionals at every level.”

—Dorie Clark, author of Reinventing You and executive faculty at Duke University Fuqua School of Business

“Move with speed but not with haste. Be ambitious and hold your focus. This is how you become a force for change. Dave’s book will help you create these habits.”

—Michael Bungay Stanier, author of the WSJ bestseller The Coaching Habit

“The Myth of Multitasking provides just the medicine we need to create order from chaos. Dave Crenshaw restores deep focus to enable your most creative, strategic work.”

—Jenny Blake, author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One

“The Myth of Multitasking will show you how to not just to be more productive, but how to treat people with greater respect. Dave’s book is essential reading to ease our overloaded minds.”

—Jordan Harbinger, creator of The Jordan Harbinger Show

THE Myth OF

Multitasking

THE Myth OF

Multitasking

HOW “DOING IT ALL” GETS

NOTHING DONE

SECOND EDITION

By Dave Crenshaw

CORAL GABLES

Copyright © 2008, 2021 by Dave Crenshaw.

Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.

Cover Design: Roberto Núñez

Cover illustration: MilletStudio/AdobeSotck

Layout & Design: Roberto Núñez

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The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing It All” Gets Nothing Done

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2020949724

ISBN: (print) 978-1-64250-505-4, (ebook) 978-1-64250-506-1

BISAC category code SEL035000, SELF-HELP / Self-Management / Time Management

Printed in the United States of America

For Carlos Fuentes,

who taught me to “move very slowly, but in a great rush.”

Table of Contents

Chapter One

The Company

Chapter Two

The Owner

Chapter Three

The Lie

Chapter Four

The Cost

Chapter Five

The Origin

Chapter Six

The Exercise

Chapter Seven

The Example

Chapter Eight

The Question

Chapter Nine

The Meeting

Chapter Ten

The Expectation

Chapter Eleven

The Truth

Chapter Twelve

The Deal

Chapter Thirteen

The Change

Chapter Fourteen

The Steps

Chapter Fifteen

The Systems

Chapter Sixteen

The Follow-Up

Worksheets

Sources

Spread the Word

The Author

Work with Dave

Chapter One

The Company

Phil pulled into a space with “visitor parking” painted on the asphalt. He shifted into park and checked the glowing digital clock on his dashboard. It was 8:54 a.m. He’d learned years ago that if he was going to teach efficiency and time management, it was important to walk the talk.

Grabbing his messenger bag from the back seat, he got out of his car and headed toward the sprawling industrial building. He paused to look up at the logo proudly displaying the words: GREENGARB: CLOTHES MOTHER NATURE INTENDED.

The company’s founder and CEO was his next client.

Helen Whitman was easy to research online. A quick search returned plenty of information about her success. She’d spent most of a decade as an executive in a large, popular retail clothing chain.

Then, about three years ago, Helen had seen the fashion industry trending toward eco-friendly fashion. Trusting her gut, she jumped into eco-entrepreneurship. It was quite the leap, because GreenGarb’s sales were twenty million dollars last year and were still growing.

Despite its success—or more likely because of it—GreenGarb’s leader was hitting a brick wall. Helen was frustrated with feeling that, despite her brilliant ideas, nothing was being completed correctly or on time.

As Phil got closer to the building’s entrance, he thought about his first chat with Helen before being hired. Her situation was all too familiar. While Phil’s clients came from companies of many sizes and different industries, their stories were basically the same.

People felt stressed and undervalued. Employee workloads kept growing. Work-life balance was becoming unattainable. Everyone wanted more free time and less stress.

Phil’s job was to help. Coming from the outside and looking in, he often could see what those stuck in the mayhem could not. As a young consultant he was grateful—and maybe a touch nervous—for the opportunity to serve such an accomplished CEO.

GreenGarb’s reception desk was a few steps from the building’s main entrance. On his way in, Phil’s mouth felt a little dry. The woman at the desk greeted him with a lukewarm, “May I help you?”

“I’m here to see Helen.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes. Yes, I do,” he said. “My name is Phil. She’s expecting me.”

“One moment, please.”

Without looking away from her monitor, the receptionist pressed a button and politely spoke into her headset.

“Good morning, Helen. A gentleman named Phil is here. He said you’re expecting him.” She listened for the response, unplugged her headset, and said, “This way, please.”

Phil followed the receptionist through a door and into an open office maze. There was an air of constant chaos among the employees sharing the space. He noticed the same thing in the offices along the walls.

A few desks looked organized, but most of them had these “piling systems” covering nearly every surface. Even the floors were stacked waist-high with files, clothing samples, and loose catalog pages. People quickly weaved through the desks and workstations. They spoke in brisk, determined tones to each other.

As with most of his new clients, Phil was energized by what he saw on this unplanned tour of GreenGarb. Chaos wasn’t his happy place, but gaining control over it was.

One of his favorite expressions always came to mind whenever he started with a new client: a business is a reflection of its leadership. If that was true, helping Helen would help everyone be happier and more productive.

The receptionist led Phil through the door and disappeared.

Chapter Two

The Owner

What Phil saw in this much larger corner office verged on both a visual and emotional catastrophe.

A woman standing just inside the door glared at Phil over her red-framed glasses as if to say, “Wait in line, pal!” Helen sat at a large, cluttered wooden conference table with two other managers on either side of her.

She waved Phil in and pointed at one of the open chairs. “Have a seat, Phil. We’re just finishing up.”

Phil sat down and took in the moment. The woman with the red glasses stood nearby, impatiently waiting for her turn to get an urgent minute with Helen. Phil watched her with curiosity. She was pursing her lips, trying to contain herself like she had life-altering news to spill.

The two managers finished up with Helen and left the office. But before red-rims realized she could speak, Helen turned to her, showing a bit of her own impatience. “Yes, Sally? What is it?”

“I wanted to di—”

“Hold on a second, Sally,” Helen interrupted, throwing Sally off balance. “I’m sorry for the wait, Phil. After Sally tells us her life story, I’m all yours.”

Sally sighed and rolled her eyes at Helen’s sarcasm.

“No problem, Helen,” Phil replied, sensing the tension in the room.

Helen gestured for Sally to come closer. “Go.”

“I wanted to discuss this before you went into that meeting. My Kansas supplier needs to know if you approved the color change from khaki to light tan.”

Helen’s expression of frustration said it all. Then she smiled, regained control, and took a deep breath. “Sally, I talked to him yesterday and told him everything he needed to know. Why am I being asked again?”

“What’s the answer? He’s waiting to hear from me today.”

“Tell him—again—that light tan is fine. Delaying our shipment is not!”

“Got it. Um…” She glanced down at her phone, then scratched her head in thought. “There was something else I needed to ask…”

“What else, Sally? I have someone here waiting for me.”

“Ah, got it!” Sally replied. “Did you see the designs I sent to you yesterday?”

“No, I haven’t.” Helen sighed. “You know I’m buried. I’ve got a million things to finish. I’ll get to them today if I can.”

“Okay, thanks.” In one swift motion, Sally pocketed her phone, turned, and headed for the door.

“Sally?” Helen called out.

“Yes?” She said expectantly.

“Please close the door behind you.”

Chapter Three

The Lie

70

Percentage of workers who admit they feel distracted when they’re on the job.

16

Percentage of workers who say they’re almost always distracted.

—Workplace distraction survey, Udemy

Helen spoke as quickly as a state fair auctioneer, and Phil struggled to keep up.

“Phil, I’m swamped! There’s never enough time in my day to finish anything. Every time I look up, there’s another Sally or Jeff or Tracy or whoever demanding my attention. I haven’t opened any email in days! My voicemail is full—and that’s just on my office line! I can’t even log in to our chat app. I haven’t turned my brain off in…”

Helen trailed off and put her hands up in surrender. “But I guess that’s why you’re here.”

“Yes,” Phil said. He checked over his shoulder to make sure no other employees had crept back into the room. “So, just to confirm, did you block off our meeting time today and communicate that we’re not to be interrupted?”

“Yes. I put it on my calendar and tagged it ‘DO NOT DISTURB!’ I think that’s clear enough, but you never know.” Helen paused. “There is just one call I need to take if it comes in…”

“Understood,” Phil replied. “I know you’re in a hurry, so let’s get right to it. Helen, what comes to mind when I say ‘multitasking’?”

“That’s easy! Me!”

“You? What does that mean?”

“Me! I’m an excellent multitasker. I’m the Queen Mother of Multitasking. It’s actually one of the top requirements in our job postings. If you can’t multitask, your chances of survival at GreenGarb are pretty low.”

Leaning back in his chair, Phil grinned. He was in familiar territory now. “Helen, do you like Mark Twain?”

Helen looked puzzled. “Sure, I like Mark Twain. I read Huckleberry Finn in high school. What does he have to do with multitasking?”

“Not much, but he did say something that might sound familiar: ‘There are lies, damned lies, and—’ ”

“ ‘—statistics!’ Sure, I know that one,” Helen added.

“Great. Here’s the twenty-first-century reboot: ‘There are lies, damned lies, and…multitasking.’ ” Phil waited for her reaction.

Helen blinked. “I don’t get it. Why is multitasking a lie?”

“It’s not only a lie, Helen,” Phil said. “It’s worse than a lie. It’s even worse than a damned lie.”

“Huh? Why do you say that?”

Phil leaned forward. “Multitasking is worse than a damned lie because our fast-paced world has blindly accepted it as truth. We say ‘multitasking’ like we order a pizza. It’s become a part of our culture. It’s a way of life.”

After a pause, he continued. “But why are we proud of it? Why do we celebrate multitasking when it’s neither a reality nor efficient?”

Helen recoiled in her chair. “I’m not sure how you got to that, Phil. My entire days are basically a bunch of overlapping simultaneous tasks. Every minute is accounted for—I get more done in an hour than most people do in a week!”

Phil accepted her challenge. “I know you’re a hard worker, Helen. You may be the hardest worker of anyone I’ve worked with. Yet with all this hard work, are you getting the results you want? Respectfully, how’s multitasking working out for you?”

“I guess it’s not,” Helen admitted. “I thought you were going to help me become more efficient and effective. I didn’t know this was going to be about multitasking.”

“Helen, ‘multitasking’ isn’t your superpower in this story. It’s actually making things worse.”

“If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.”

—Russian proverb

Chapter Four

The Cost

6

The average number of minutes workers take between checking email or instant messages.

—Study of 185 million hours of working time conducted by RescueTime

Phil reached inside his bag and produced his smartphone. “I’m about to prove exactly how multitasking hurts you. First, can I ask you some questions and take some notes?”

“Go right ahead,” Helen replied cautiously.

“How many emails do you get in a day?” Phil asked.

“Tons! But I have no idea. I just answer them if and when they need answering.”

“Fair enough,” he replied. “Would you open your email and tell me how many you’ve got just for today?”

Helen hesitated, then turned to her laptop. She swiped over her trackpad and counted. “I probably have over seventy-five emails there now, and it’s only ten in the morning!”

Phil tapped something on his smartphone. “And, realistically, how many times a day do you check your email?”

“Oh gosh. I need to stay on top of things or I fall way behind! I guess I check a few times an hour.”

Phil pointed at Helen’s hand, which was holding her smartphone. “What about that? Do you check your email on that, too?”

Helen looked down at her phone. “I do, though not as often. But I’m almost always dipping in and out of our company’s messaging app, ChatWide. If something pops up there, I know it’s usually work-related.”

“Okay. This is helpful info,” Phil said.

Suddenly, as if it was planned, the digital floodgates opened. Helen’s phone came alive with a trio of chirps and buzzes, announcing news reports, text messages, social network updates, and many others.

“Well, this is awkward,” Helen said as she tapped on her phone to quiet it.

“Does that happen a lot?”

“What? You mean do I get flooded with digital notifications like this?”

Phil waited for Helen to answer her own question.

“Yes, that happens all the time,” Helen admitted. “But in my defense, Judge Phil, I think I’ve done well learning to ignore all but the most important ones.”

Phil accepted this. “Fair enough. For our purposes, I’ll call all these digital interruptions ‘email’—just to simplify things.”

Helen shrugged. “Sounds good to me.”

“How many times a day are you interrupted by people? I’m talking about in-person, face-to-face, whites-of-their-eyes interruptions.”

“Too often,” Helen groaned. “The only reason we haven’t already been interrupted is because I personally sent an all-staff message over ChatWide to insist that we are not to be disturbed. I may have typed it in all caps. Was that wrong?”

Phil laughed at the last part and pointed at the door. “And the handwritten ‘DO NOT DISTURB!!!’ sticky note is just backup?”

Helen shrugged. “I do what I can.” She looked at her closed office door. “If it wasn’t for my message and the door note, I’m probably interrupted just a few times an hour.”

Phil scribbled another note. “What about phone calls? How many do you get a day?”

“Which phone are you talking about? My office phone or my smartphone?”

“Both,” Phil replied.

“Well, only my family, friends, and a few business contacts have my mobile number,” Helen explained, “and most of those people don’t call me during the day unless it’s an emergency—like the occasional zombie apocalypse.

“Calls to my office phone are screened by reception—only the most important ones get through. And internally, very few GreenGarbers call me on the landline.”

“Okay, so how many calls do you think?” Phil asked, smartphone at the ready.

“Maybe one an hour,” Helen replied.

“Okay,” Phil said. “Just a moment.”

Phil pulled up a drawing app and created a rough chart. When he finished, he turned it around for Helen to see:

“This is what your typical work hour looks like,” Phil explained. “If we do some very forgiving math, you’re interrupted about six times an hour. That’s about one interruption every ten minutes, right?”

Helen stared at Phil’s illustration like he’d just discovered time travel. “Wow. Okay, I hear what you’re saying.”

“I haven’t actually said anything yet,” Phil replied. “We’re working up to revealing your personal ‘truth of time.’ For now, all we’ve done is consider a few questions to discover that truth. And what is your truth saying to you?”

Helen leaned forward and folded her arms on the desk. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? My hour is too divided. Welcome to my world. No wonder I can’t get stuff done, with all of that happening!” Her eyes suddenly widened. “But that’s why I multitask!”

Phil sat expressionless, still holding up the drawing. “Go on.”

Wanting to defend herself, Helen continued. “With so many different things going on during the day, I have to be ready to handle many things at once. Phil, I’ve got my blackbelt in multitasking! It’s an art form that has taken me years to perfect!”

“Oh?” Phil smiled. “Multitasking is an art now?”

“It is!” Helen exclaimed with a laugh. “How else am I supposed to get stuff done? This electronic everything happens so fast—questions from top customers, replies to managers, guidance for our sales reps. This is what it means to lead a company in our age. If you aren’t nimble, you don’t get to sit in the captain’s chair of this eco-friendly, fashion-forward ship!”

“I hear you.” Phil nodded. “Tell me how you multitask. What’s a typical situation?”

Helen thought for a moment. “Well, I’ll be typing an email from a supplier. Someone will come in and ask me a ‘quick question.’ ” She forced a smile. “It’s always a ‘quick question.’ ”

“Ah, the dreaded ‘double Q.’ So, what do you do?”

“Well, remember, I have my blackbelt in multitasking. So, I’ll keep typing the email and listen to the question. I’ll answer the question, and then I’ll go back to the email.” She looked at Phil, waiting for his reaction. “That’s it.”

“You didn’t really multitask, did you?” Phil asked.

“What do you mean? I was absolutely crushing multitasking in that scenario!”

“But you weren’t really doing two things at once, were you?” Phil replied with a grin.

Helen sat back in her chair. “Okay. So, what was I doing?”

“You were switchtasking.”

At that, Helen grabbed a sticky notepad and wrote in clear block lettering: SWITCHTASKING!!

“Interesting. Tell me more,” she said.

“You were switching back and forth between two tasks,” Phil explained. “Things happened so fast that you didn’t recognize the cost you were paying. It doesn’t matter that you believe you were doing them at the same time. You weren’t. Instead, your brain was jumping between the two tasks.”

“Hmm.”

“So, let’s break down what was really happening in your example.” Phil squinted and mimed typing an email. “You were mentally locked on to writing your email, crafting a well-thought reply. Enter Sally with her ‘quick question.’

“Switch.” Phil tapped Helen’s sticky note on the desk one time, and then his head.

“Eager to finish the email, you glanced up at Sally for a moment to give her half your attention—which should be enough…so you thought. Switch.

“But Sally needed an answer yesterday and demanded your full attention. So, you tried to listen. But in the back of your mind, you were still thinking about that unfinished email and other work you were in a hurry to get done. Switch.

“Realizing you missed everything Sally had just said, and that it clearly was a big deal to her, you asked her to repeat the question. Switch.

“Frustrated, she repeated herself, this time with you fully tuning in to her needs. In the end, you gave her a rushed answer. And then turned your attention back to your laptop—”

“Switch!” Helen jumped in.

“Exactly.” Phil nodded. “But because of the interruption and the break in your concentration, it took you a few moments to find your spot in the email. Then you had to refocus your train of thought again. It took a moment to get there, but eventually you did and got back to work. Switch and switch again.”

Helen looked puzzled. “I get how this is switchtasking and not multitasking. But what’s the problem? I still got everything done.”

“You did,” Phil agreed. “But in a highly unproductive way. Switchtasking is costly, inefficient, and ineffective. Have you ever studied economics, Helen?”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “It was my least favorite subject in college.”

“I can appreciate that.” Phil laughed. “Most people prefer something far lighter. When I was in college, I read economics books as a hobby. I think they’re fun!”

“Wow, Phil. You just leveled up from quirky to weird,” Helen joked.

“I know, I know,” Phil admitted. “So, from your college days, I’m guessing you remember the concept of switching costs?”

Helen nodded. “We experience it too much here at GreenGarb.”

“So, you try to avoid it in your business unless absolutely necessary, right? If Sally’s supplier in Kansas wasn’t making the grade, what would be GreenGarb’s switching costs to use a new supplier in, say, China?”

“Wow,” Helen replied. “They would be huge.”

“How huge?”

“Well, off the top of my head, there’s time to learn about the new supplier. We might save on the overall product, but we’d definitely take a huge hit on other unavoidable costs.

“We’d probably need to hire a new Sally who can speak fluent Mandarin—or just get Sally to learn it.” She laughed. “Honestly, the thought of these supplier switching costs gives me a headache.”

“No doubt,” Phil said. “So, if your supplier switching costs give you a headache, why should the costs to your own productivity be any less painful?

“That’s how switchtasking makes things worse for you, Helen. Call it microswitching cost, if you want. Kansas is your email. China is the Sally interruption. The effect of a microswitch between the two is the cost.”

Helen nodded. “I think I follow you, Phil. But is it really that bad?”

“Great question. Let’s go back and analyze your example of the interrupted email. What were the switching costs?”

“Well,” she considered, “I believe it cost me a little time when I broke concentration to listen to Sally. But because I wasn’t really paying attention, I lost more time. I had to ask Sally to repeat the question. We both lost time there. When she did, I was able to pay attention.”

She paused. “And then, because I completely lost my pre-Sally train of thought, I had to locate my place in the email so I could finally get back to it. Oh, my. That’s pathetic.”

The expression on Helen’s face satisfied Phil. “Again, how much time did that ‘quick question’ really cost you, Helen?”

Helen gasped. “Probably about five minutes!”

“Exactly.”

Phil turned his phone around and showed the drawing to Helen. “Let’s take a look at this again. Each of these horizontal lines in the hour is a switch. But before we get into how much time you really lost, we should have a better understanding of the different kinds of switches you had to make.

“You initiated some of the switches. We’ll call these ‘active switches,’ like switching tasks to make a call, getting up from your desk to speak to someone, or just flipping over to your email because you felt like it. Any time you make the switch, it’s an active switch.

“The rest are ‘passive switches.’ These are caused by someone or something other than you. Think of your phone’s text messaging notifications, staff interruptions, or anything else you didn’t do or cause.”

Helen sighed and shook her head. “For me, I bet the passive switches are the worst.”

“Possibly,” Phil agreed. “Usually, the more responsibilities a person has, the higher up they stand on the company ladder and the more they experience passive switches. So, in your case, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

Helen pointed toward the door. “How on earth do I keep people from bugging me all day? I can’t. It would be chaos if I did that!”

Phil put his hands up. “We’ll get to solutions in a bit. First, let’s take a look at the costs of all these active and passive switches.

“Instead of writing an email, let’s imagine in that hour you’re reviewing GreenGarb’s financials.” Phil pointed to the drawing’s first line—“office.”

“The first switchtask occurred just ten minutes into the hour when Sally came into your office and interrupted you. When we discussed the interrupted email example, you estimated losing five minutes.”

Phil added a “5 min” label to the diagram and continued. “After getting back to your financials review, the next switch happened when you heard a new email notification.”

He pointed to the email line on the diagram. “What would you guess the average switching cost is for checking email?”

Helen tapped the table with her pen. “I’d guess it’s not so bad. Most of the time, I’ll take a quick look and get back to it later…” She trailed off, then added with a guilty smile, “Unless I see it’s important. Then I’ll reply right away. I guess that’s another five minutes.”

Phil added a second “5 min” label, this time beside the email line.

“Then a phone call comes in, causing yet another switch,” Phil said, pointing to her mobile phone. “Do you see how this is starting to add up? You’ve already got three tasks going at once: reviewing financials, answering email, and now someone’s calling you. What’s the average switching cost for an incoming call?”

“Well, if it’s my mobile, it’s probably friends or family—like one of my kids in the nurse’s office again. So, I’ll probably answer it,” Helen said. “If it’s my office phone, the receptionist screens my calls for me. So, if she’s calling me, it’s important enough to warrant the interruption. I can, of course, have her take a message.”

“Delaying the inevitable,” Phil pointed out.

“Yes, the inevitable,” Helen agreed reluctantly. “Most of the time, the calls I take have nothing to do with the task at hand, but they’re still important enough to take. I suppose office calls average about seven minutes.”

“Okay. I’ll just give five minutes of switching costs to each of the other switches. Is that okay?”

Helen nodded.

“That brings us to a total switching cost of thirty-two minutes.” Phil jotted a few more notes down. “Let’s look at what we have.”

He paused a moment to let the visual sink in. “What do you see in this diagram?”

Helen shook her head in disbelief. “I see a mess! How can anyone get anything done in an hour like that?”

“Go on,” Phil said.

“And if I add up all the blank spaces in that hour, I only have about thirty minutes to focus on the financials!”

Helen raised her hands in frustration. “Worse than that, the longest amount of time I can go uninterrupted—without switchtasking—is the first ten minutes of the hour. After that, I’m only working in five-minute bursts. Unbelievable! This is why I always feel like I’m herding cats!”

Phil laughed. “I think you’re getting it. And guess what: the research is on your side, Helen. Studies have shown that on average, a person loses about 28 percent of their workday because of interruptions and inefficiencies. Multitasking—or more accurately, switchtasking—is probably the biggest culprit.

“Consider your payroll here, Helen. If your employees’ working habits fall in the range of these studies, that means that about one-fourth of your payroll is being thrown away because of switchtasking. That’s one workweek out of every month.”

Phil could see the realization growing on Helen’s face. “And what about me? According to this little chart, I’m losing about 50 percent of my time!”

“True,” Phil agreed. “But that’s because you’re the captain of this eco-friendly, fashion-forward ship. With great responsibility comes great distractibility. It’s the law of switchtasking.”

58.8

Average percent of productivity improvement in organizations that reduced multitasking.

—Study conducted by Realization Technologies, Inc.

Chapter Five

The Origin

“In multitasking, a computer never performs more than one task at a time, but the processing ability of the computer’s processors is so fast and smooth that it gives the impression of performing multiple tasks at the same time.”

—Techopedia definition for “multitasking”

Helen stood up to stretch and do some deep breathing. When she sat back down, Phil could tell she was deep in thought.

“I don’t get it. Everyone complains about how busy they are, doing thirty things at once. If multitasking is so bad for business, why is everyone wearing it like an Olympic medal?”

“Well, the word itself is actually misused. It was originally used to describe how a computer seems to complete several tasks at the same time.

“Then, in the nineties, some clever wordsmith thought they saw a connection between working computers and busy people doing many things. A catchword was born. Newspapers peppered their articles with the word, talk show hosts started to use it more, and magazines ran features about it.

“The word was used so often it just became a regular part of our conversations.”

As Phil was giving his history lesson on multitasking, Helen turned—switchtasked!—to her laptop and asked him where he’d gotten his information.

“Do a Google search,” Phil said. “The first result will probably be Wikipedia. That should give you what you need.”

Helen did her search in a few keystrokes and found it. “Under ‘computer multitasking’ it says: ‘multitasking automatically interrupts the running program, saving its state and loading the saved state of another program and transferring control to it.’ Sounds like my IT person wrote this,” she said with a chuckle.

“I’m sure your IT person could talk about it for hours,” Phil agreed. “Notice the word ‘interrupts.’ This means one program needs to stop for a micro-instant while the other program runs.

“Just like your brain, a computer really can’t perform more than one operation at the same time. The processor is actually switching between programs so quickly it gives the illusion that it’s doing it all at once.”

Helen nodded. “Which is why this entry under ‘human multitasking’ says it’s the ‘apparent human ability to perform more than one task.’ ‘Apparent’ means it’s not really happening, right? Which is why it wastes time.”

“And why ‘switchtasking’ is a more accurate word than multitasking…most of the time,” Phil replied. “But there is a way of working that can be a productive use of time while doing multiple things.”

“Wait, first you tell me I can’t multitask, and now you’re telling me I can?” Helen joked as she reached for her pen and notepad. “And I suppose you’ve got some clever term for that, too?”

“Yep! Are you ready?”

Helen clicked her pen a few times over the pad like she was waiting for a college exam to begin.

Phil sucked in an exaggerated breath and said, “Backtasking.”

Helen wrote “BACKTASKING!!” and ripped off the sticky note to slap it on the desk—this time with a bit more dramatic flourish. “Backtasking? Interesting. What is it?”

Phil grinned. “Backtasking is short for ‘background tasking.’ This is when you’re doing two or more things, but only one of them requires your attention. Everything else is happening in the background.

“For example, backtasking could be eating dinner and watching TV, or jogging and listening to music.”

“What about working on your computer while your printer is spitting out a rough copy of next fall’s dress line?” Helen asked.

“That is a perfect and very ‘fitting’ example of backtasking,” Phil replied with a smirk.

Helen rolled her eyes. “Very ‘suitable,’ Phil. But seriously. What about talking on the phone while driving?”

Phil smiled. He had heard this question from clients before, many times.

“You’re not the first client to ask me that. I tell everyone the same thing: there’s a reason distracted driving laws exist for voice calls and using your phone while on the road.

“I could show you endless pages of studies and statistics about the dangers of distracted driving—and so could your local traffic cops. Here’s the truth: When you drive while distracted, you’re creating about the same amount of risk as driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs. And the greater your distraction, the greater the risk.”

“What about a driverless car?” Helen broke in. “That would be backtasking, right?”

“Agreed,” Phil continued. “If it’s truly driverless…or you’re in the back seat and someone else is driving you. Otherwise, simply don’t do it. It’s switchtasking, and the cost and risk are too high—to you and everyone around you.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Helen said. “But let’s get back to me and my employees. Are you saying that switchtasking is bad for business, while backtasking is good?”

Phil held up his hand as a cautionary gesture. “This isn’t a question of right or wrong. It’s a question of math and productivity. Think of switchtasking as less efficient and less effective.

“Backtasking, on the other hand, can be efficient and effective.” Phil quickly added, “If that’s truly what you’re doing and you’re doing it properly.”

“But when most people say they’re ‘multitasking,’ they’re not talking about backtasking—are they, Phil?”

Phil shook his head. “Not very often. When most people attempt to multitask, they are really switchtasking. And if they’re switchtasking, they’re doing things in the least productive way possible.”

27

The number of seconds it can take to regain attention after issuing voice commands while driving.

—Study by Strayer and Cooper of the University of Utah Department of Psychology for AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety

Chapter Six

The Exercise

11

Percent of test score reduction by those who multitasked versus those who did not.

—Study by Sana, Weston, and Cepada of McMaster and York Universities

A knock on the door took Helen and Phil by surprise. Helen shook her head in disbelief. “And here we go! Switchtasking is how we do things here at GreenGarb, Phil.”

Because the first knocks weren’t answered, the second set was louder. The door opened a crack, followed by Sally’s head poking through.

“I’m really sorry, Helen. I know you said you didn’t want to be disturbed. I just have a very quick question.”

Helen was still looking at Phil. “Okay, Mr. Multitasking Expert. You told me to avoid the ‘double q.’ So, what’s the play here?”

“It’s your decision, Helen,” Phil replied. “I’m at your disposal, but our time together is limited. I think the better question to ask in this situation is: ‘What will be the switching cost of this interruption?’ ”

Helen nodded slowly and then turned to Sally. “Can this wait, Sally? I mean, is it an emergency?”

Sally sighed. It was obvious to Phil that she had grown accustomed to constantly being put off by Helen. “It’s just a quick question. You can go right back to what you were doing. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal,” Helen replied, “is that multitasking is a lie. You’re asking me to switch my attention and that, Sally, makes me less productive.”

Sally groaned. “Did he tell you that?” She pointed an accusatory finger at Phil, who raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Helen rolled her eyes. “Yes, Sally. Phil just explained how multitasking hurts me more than it helps.”

“Of course, he did,” Sally retorted. “He’s a man. Men can’t multitask. But for women, it’s a way of life. It’s been proven somewhere that women are better multitaskers than men.”

Phil smiled and tried his best to act surprised. “Interesting. Where’d you hear that?”

Sally paused and closed one eye, searching her memory for the answer. “A friend told me about it once. I can’t remember where she heard it. Maybe it was a blog post or a video online somewhere?”

“Actually, Sally, I’ll give you this one,” Phil replied. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard the gender debate about multitasking.”

Speaking now to both Helen and Sally, Phil went into this topic with a bit more caution. “There are numerous studies showing the differences in male and female brain chemistry. Several studies show no difference among genders when it comes to multitasking. Others show that women incur less switching cost than men.”

“Switching cost is when you lose time,” Helen explained to Sally. “So, women lose less time than men do. Right, Phil?”

“See? I told you!” Sally jumped in.

“However, Sally,” Phil continued, “that’s a misleading statement.”

Sally shook her head. “All I know is that I can handle way more things at the same time than most men here. They get frustrated with multitasking. I’ve seen it my whole life, including at GreenGarb!”

She pointed her red-rimmed glasses toward Helen and continued. “You can’t say you haven’t seen that, Helen. Don’t the men look like they have a harder time with multitasking?”

Helen nodded slightly and looked at Phil. “She’s not entirely wrong.”

“No, she isn’t,” Phil replied. “In my work with female executives, I have personally seen that women incur less switching cost than men—”

“Yes!” Sally pumped her fist.

“But,” Phil continued, “they still incur—”

“—switching costs,” Helen finished for him.

“Exactly,” Phil nodded. “It doesn’t matter your age, gender, or background. When you switchtask, you always incur a cost. It’s simply a matter of math. It’s unavoidable. But rather than us talking about it, let’s do a little experiment.

“Do you have a few pieces of paper we can use? I’d like to show you something that’ll help clarify what the cost is.”

Helen spun her chair around and retrieved some scrap paper out of a cardboard box. She handed a sheet to Sally and kept one for herself.

Phil continued. “Sally, do you have time to do a brief exercise with us?”

“How long will this take? I have a lot to do.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Phil replied. “It’ll only take about three minutes.”

Sally dropped into a chair and took the paper from Helen. “Okay. Let’s do your little exercise.”

Phil grabbed one of the pages and wrote on it for a moment. Then he showed the result to the women. “Please draw this diagram on your pages,” he said.

Helen and Sally took a few moments to copy what Phil had drawn on his smartphone, including the sentence at the top: Multitasking is worse than a lie.

“Okay,” Phil began, “this is a timed exercise, so wait until I say, ‘go.’ First, you’ll copy the phrase, ‘Multitasking is worse than a lie’ on the first blank row. Then, you’ll write the number sequence, from one to twenty-seven, on the next row. Got it?”

“Yes,” Helen said. “First we write the sentence, and then we write the numbers.”

“Correct. Just make sure you copy the whole sentence before you move to the numbers.”

“What about the next two rows on the page?” Sally asked.

“Ignore them for now. We’ll use them in the next round.” Phil looked at the women as he positioned his watch at eye level. “Ready?”

Helen and Sally were already poised to start. They both gave quick nods to show they were ready.

“Aaaannd, GO!”

Sally and Helen wrote as quickly as they could. The room was quiet except for the sounds of pens scribbling furiously on the paper.

“Done!” they said, almost in unison.

“Twenty-nine seconds,” Phil said as the women finished together. “Write twenty-nine seconds at the end of the second row.”

“Now, this time,” Phil said, “we’re going to find out who’s better at multitasking by timing how long it takes you to write Multitasking is worse than a lie.

“But in this round, for each letter you write on the first line you have to write a number, from one to twenty-seven, on the next line down.” Phil demonstrated this on his phone. “You’ll start with the ‘M’ up here. Directly below, you’ll write the number one. The same for the letter ‘U’ and the number two. And so on. Understand?”

“Yep,” Helen said. “We’re switching between writing a letter and a number until we’ve written the phrase ‘Multitasking is worse than a lie’ and added the numbers below from one to twenty-seven. Got it.”

“Good. Don’t forget to alternate between letters and numbers.” Once again, Phil lifted his watch to signal the start of the exercise.

“Ready?”

Sally and Helen picked up their pens and leaned over their papers. “Yes,” they replied in unison.

“Go!”

A few seconds into it, Helen was giggling. “This is harder than it looks!”

“Aargh!” Sally cried. “I keep messing up.”

Phil peered over at their papers, noting their progress.

As Helen finished writing her last number, Phil announced, “Sixty seconds, Helen.”

Sally finished a moment later. “Sixty-three seconds, Sally. Okay, write your times at the end of the fourth row.”

Helen laughed. “It felt like I was back at school taking a test.”

Sally was quiet. She was staring at her paper with an expression that looked like disbelief.

After a moment, she said quietly, “I kind of knew where you were going with this. I had a feeling this round would take longer, but I didn’t think it would take me twice as long! Who knew?”

Phil looked over at Helen. “Do you want to take a stab at explaining this to Sally?”

Helen cleared her throat. “Well, it’s a switching cost, right? What we just did is pretty much the same as multitasking. In the second exercise, we were trying to do two things at the same time. But every time we switched back and forth between letters and numbers, there was a cost to that switch. The ‘up and down’ of our pens cost us a little here and a little there.”

“Don’t forget the mental switch,” Phil said. “Every time you went back and forth between the letter row and the number row, you had to remember where you were and what to write.”

“Yes,” Helen agreed. “I think for me that was the biggest cost, not to mention I had to go back and fix some of my mistakes.”

Sally examined her own mistakes from the second exercise. “Okay, fine. But not all multitasking is bad, is it? I mean, I get plenty done that way.”

Helen and Phil looked at each other and smiled. “I’ll explain backtasking to her later,” Helen told Phil with a wink.

“This isn’t about good and bad,” Phil explained. “This is about effective and efficient.”

Sally was quiet.

“But,” Phil continued quickly, “my experience is that most people multitask—”

“Switchtask!” Helen corrected.

Phil grinned. “Most people tend to switchtask at times when it’s least helpful for them to do so.”

“Response time slowing, as an index of multitasking cost, did not show a significant correlation with age nor did it show a significant difference with gender.”

—Study by Al-Hashimi, Zanto, and Gazzaley of the Department of Neurology, UC San Francisco

Chapter Seven

The Example

“If I’m speaking to you and checking my iPhone at the same time, I’m doing neither. This is why our society is frazzled; this misconception that we can consciously do more than one thing at a time effectively.”

—Deepak Chopra

While collecting her thoughts after Phil’s multitasking exercise, something caught Sally’s attention outside. “I think I’m witnessing a perfect example of what you’re talking about right now. Look out the window.”

Helen and Phil turned to look where Sally was staring. Through Helen’s second-story office window, they had a perfect view of the first-floor office area.

A young man wearing a T-shirt from a local college was standing next to a seated female coworker. To Phil, it looked as if he was trying to share something very important with his coworker.

“Look at Tracy,” Sally said, pointing out of the window. Tracy, the coworker, was attempting to focus on her computer monitor—probably displaying a company report—while attempting to give half an ear to the man standing next to her. “Is she even listening to Jason?”

“Jason’s one of our interns,” Helen explained to Phil. “He does good work, but he can be a little overeager sometimes. Tracy is his supervisor.”

Jason continued to speak enthusiastically, and Tracy nodded in response without ever turning away from her computer screen.

“Oh! Look!” Sally said excitedly. “Now she’s walking away to take a call on her cell!”

Jason stood there, hovering in mid-sentence, as he watched Tracy walk away. He dropped his arms in discouragement, shook his head, and shuffled away.

“Poor Jason-the-intern,” Sally said sympathetically. Helen glanced at Sally, and Phil caught the look of doubt on her face.

As the scene downstairs finished, Phil spoke softly. “It’s bad enough losing efficiency and effectiveness when we try to multitask. But when multitasking—switchtasking—involves another person, the costs are deeper.

“People deserve our full attention, whether at home or at work. When we give them only partial, piecemeal attention, the switching costs extend to damaging relationships.

“Moments like you just saw make people feel unimportant. They tell me this all the time.”

“I want people at GreenGarb to feel like they matter,” Helen offered.

Phil nodded. “I can tell you do. And when you focus on them, they feel that. But when you don’t focus on them, it’s the equivalent of seeing someone and saying, ‘Hi, you’re unimportant.’ ”

Sally chortled. “We’d never do that!”

“Of course not,” Phil replied. “But—”

“But we do that, don’t we?” Helen said. “All the time.”

Phil paused. Both women looked very deep in thought, and he gave them space to take in the moment.

Sally was the first to break the silence. “I have to admit, I need to work on this. I have a tough time giving people my undivided attention.”

Phil smiled encouragingly. “We’ve all done it, Sally. And we’ll continue doing it as long as multitasking—switchtasking—is seen as acceptable.

“The message is this: when someone says they’re ‘good at multitasking,’ they’re really saying they’re inefficient. It’s like publicly admitting you’re going to make it a habit to screw up multiple things at the same time.

“And, ironically, people who consider themselves great at multitasking are statistically more likely to be the worst at it.

“It doesn’t matter how effective you think you are at switchtasking. When you do it, you will take longer getting things done and hurt relationships in the process. Whenever possible, it’s better to focus on one activity—and one person—at a time.”

“The single most common way multitasking can hurt us is by affecting our relationships…when I am not giving you 100 percent, that means I do not consider you worthy of my 100 percent.”

—Dr. Amit Sood, professor and chair, Mayo Clinic Mind Body Initiative

Chapter Eight

The Question

23

Percentage increase in interruptions for workers in open office environments.

—Study by Dabbish, Mark, and González presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

After the trio turned away from the window, Sally was able to ask Helen her question. Phil noticed that, remarkably, Helen was now giving Sally her increased attention.

Before Sally left, however, she paused and began swiping through her phone as if to remember something else she wanted to ask Helen. Phil noticed her scrunched eyebrows and pinched lips. After a moment, she shrugged and headed for the door.

“Sally, before you leave, can I ask you something?”

“Sure, Phil. What’s up?”

“The last two times you’ve tried to leave Helen’s office, you’ve stopped yourself,” he said. “And then you looked like you’re trying to remember something while swiping through your phone. Do you mind if I ask why?”

Sally looked surprised. “Really?! I do that? I hadn’t noticed.”

She glanced at her phone and scratched her head absentmindedly. “I guess I’m trying to be efficient. I’m making sure I’ve asked Helen everything I need to ask while I have the chance. Does that answer your question?”

Phil smiled. “Perfectly.”

“Thank you, Sally,” Helen said.

Phil watched Sally as she closed the door behind her. He turned back to Helen. “Is that fairly typical for anyone who comes into your office? Do they pause after talking with you and take a moment to be sure they’ve covered everything?”

“Huh. I suppose they do.” Helen paused to think for a moment. “Yep. Now that you’ve pointed it out, I think you’re right. People do that all the time. It’s like my employees are trying to squeeze every second out of me before leaving. I’ve had to physically escort some of them out of my office before I can get back to work!”

Phil smiled and nodded. “The reason they do that can be summed up with one word.”

Phil opened the doodling app on his phone and wrote:

“When?” Helen looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Your people don’t know when they’ll have a chance to talk to you again. They’ve become used to you being in constant switchtasking mode.” Phil added a large question mark to the screen:

Helen didn’t react, so Phil continued. “Because they don’t know when you’ll slow down long enough to listen to them, they’re afraid. Basically, your employees have learned that once they’ve grabbed your attention, they shouldn’t let it go.”

Helen’s brow furrowed. “I see the pattern, Phil. But what can I do? I’m swamped and can’t be available all the time. That’s why I have to close my door. Otherwise, my office looks like downtown rush hour with people in and out, asking me questions.”

Phil erased the question mark and drew a heavy line underneath:

“If you give your employees a clear ‘when’—a ‘when’ they can count on—the fear goes away. They’ll learn to count on that ‘when’ and begin to hold most of their questions until that ‘when.’ If your employees come to rely on the ‘when,’ you’ll see a large drop in your switchtasking.”

“Sure, Phil. How on earth do I give my employees a ‘when’? Most of the time, I have no control over what happens in my day.”

Sensing Helen’s frustration, Phil paused for a moment and softened his tone. “There are two simple ways to create clear ‘whens’ for your employees.”

Phil took the page and wrote two bullet points below the underlined ‘when’:

Helen read the bullet points carefully. She read them twice, just to be clear. “Okay. What do they mean?”

“The lack of focus is why we have a lack of greatness.”

—Jerry Seinfeld, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee

Chapter Nine

The Meeting

“You can’t do two demanding, even simple tasks, in parallel.”

—Hal Pashler, psychology professor at UC San Diego

“First, let’s talk about recurring meetings, and we’ll use Sally as our example. I’m guessing Sally is one of your more frequent visitors.”

Helen smiled at Phil’s guesswork. “If ten times a day is considered ‘frequent,’ then you are correct, Phil.”

“Got it,” Phil said with a quick thumbs-up. “Since you meet with Sally several times a day, I’m going to guess you would probably need a daily recurring meeting with her for twenty minutes.”

“Are you sure that’s enough, Phil?” Helen asked. “It seems like Sally’s daily time with me adds up to far more than that.”

“Remember, Helen,” Phil said without skipping a beat, “you’ve been switchtasking because of Sally’s interruptions. This means you’ve been extremely inefficient. You’re probably spending twice as much time as you need to talk to Sally.”

“Or longer,” Helen muttered.

Phil nodded. “I’ll use twenty minutes daily as a guesstimate. You’re free to adjust this at any time. So, let’s play this out. If you were to set up a daily, twenty-minute meeting with Sally, what time would work best for both of your schedules?”

“Well, that’s a no-brainer. It would be about an hour after she gets into work,” Helen quickly replied. “That’s usually after she finds all the fires for me to put out, and after I’ve had a chance to review my email. So, let’s say ten o’clock.”

“Great.” Phil wrote “once daily, twenty minutes @ 10 a.m.” on his app under the “set recurring meetings” bullet.

“And there it is, Helen. You’ve just created a ‘when’ for Sally. Once you set up this daily meeting with her, she’ll know when it’s her time to speak to you.”

“Interesting,” Helen remarked.

“This simple recurring meeting is like workplace magic,” Phil said with growing enthusiasm. “When my other clients set regular daily meetings with their employees, the switching slowed down considerably. The random interruptions began disappearing, as if by magic.”

“Right,” Helen added. “Because your other clients’ Sally-like employees now have their ‘whens’ and know they’ll get their chances to talk to their Helens.”

“You got it.”

“And I suppose the idea is that Sally should wait until that time. But what about emergencies?” Helen asked. “Sometimes she absolutely needs to talk to me faster than this schedule.”

“Of course,” Phil replied. “You have to respond to true emergencies. Our goal is to reduce switches in a reasonable way. And it’s not reasonable to expect that emergencies never happen.

“However, you and I both know that the majority of what happens in business aren’t emergencies—they’re impatientcies.”

Helen pondered that for a moment. “How will Sally know the difference?”

“Just ask her,” Phil replied. “A great question to use is: ‘Can this wait until our scheduled one-on-one meeting?’ If the answer is yes, then she’ll wait. If no, then—”

“It’s an emergency, not an impatientcy,” Helen jumped in.

“Right,” Phil said. “And after you ask Sally this question several times, she’ll begin to make that decision before she even interrupts you. You’ll both want to be prepared for those meetings. This means creating a list of what you’ll be discussing. But that’s a conversation for another day.”

Helen frowned. “Do I need to set up a recurring meeting with everyone in my company?” she asked. “My whole week will be occupied with meeting after meeting!”

Phil smiled. “You need recurring meetings only with those people who are accountable to you or have regular questions for you.” Phil added the phrases “accountable” and “regular questions” under the “once daily” bullet point.

“How often should we meet?” Helen asked.

“It depends on the needs of the employee. If they’re only interrupting you once a day right now, I’d say one meeting a week would suffice. Maybe less,” Phil answered.

“So, the more attention the employee needs—like Sally’s frequent daily visits—the more often we should meet,” Helen confirmed.

“Exactly,” Phil said. “At the end of our session, I’ll give you a worksheet to guide your decision-making process.”

“Don’t interrupt me while I’m interrupting.”

—Winston Churchill

Chapter Ten

The Expectation

2.8

Seconds of workplace interruption time it takes to double the likelihood of making a mistake.

—Study by Henion, McGlashen, and Altmann at Michigan State University

“Okay, I like what you’ve shared so far,” Helen said. “Tell me about the second bullet point. You wrote ‘give a clear expectation of availability.’ ”

“Right,” Phil continued. “The second bullet is for non-emergency interruptions, but ones that come from people who don’t have recurring meetings with you. These might be unexpected phone calls from suppliers, minor questions as you pass in the hallway, drop-in visits from accounting, and so on.”

“That’s about half my day, Phil. How could I possibly give a clear expectation when so much of my day seems random and uncontrollable?”

“You know those signs hanging on the doors of businesses that say, We’ll be back at… and then show a time?” Phil asked.

“You mean those chintzy signs with little moveable clock hands?”

Phil nodded.

“Sure,” she said. “My favorite take-out place uses one.”

“Yep, even most retail chains have their store hours displayed on their doors. They also make them easy to find online,” Phil added. “Why put those up? I know the answer is obvious, but humor me for a second.”

“Well, so they don’t waste my time, right?” Helen replied. “I see—it’s so I know what to expect.”

She frowned in thought and then continued. “Are you telling me to set up shop hours?”

“Yes! Let others know when you’re ‘open for business.’ ” Phil added his own air quotes for effect.

“You’re claiming that if people know when I’m available, or ‘open for business’ as you put it, they’ll simply wait until then to talk to me.”

“Pretty much,” Phil replied. Seeing the doubt on her face, he continued. “It’s not your unavailability making people nervous enough to interrupt you. It’s the uncertainty, the not knowing, of when they’ll be able to talk to you that worries them. Your team members have no idea when you’re ‘open for business,’ so they beat down your door at all hours of the day. If your favorite take-out place didn’t have that sign on their door—”

“Oh, don’t even go there, Phil,” Helen interrupted half-jokingly.

“You feel it as a customer. Your employees are no different,” Phil said with a smile. “It will take some time for people to get used to this change. There’s always some transition time when it comes to adjusting expectations.”

“I see,” Helen said quietly. “It’s been the Wild West in my office. I’ve been letting people get away with interrupting me all this time. Now I introduce a little law and order, and they’re going to resist the change. Phil! This whole time, I’ve been doing it all wrong.”

“Not ‘wrong,’ Helen,” Phil replied. “Just inefficient.”

He picked up his messenger bag and placed it on the table. Opening it, he rummaged around for a moment, then pulled out a rectangular plastic sign with moveable red clock hands. “I just happen to have one of those ‘chintzy’ clock signs for you, Helen. Consider it a gift. You can hang it on the door until you get a more formal system in place.”

Helen laughed. “This is great! Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.”

Helen played with the hands on the clock for a moment, then continued. “So, how do I tackle phone calls? If you remember, that was a big cause for me to switchtask.”

Phil checked the time on his phone. After a few taps, he put it on speakerphone so they could both hear. “I’m calling a client of mine right now,” Phil explained before it started ringing. “Listen…”

After the fourth ring, a pleasant, professional male voice began speaking:

“Hello, this is James. You’ve reached my voicemail, which means I’m probably meeting with a customer right now. I respond to voicemail messages at noon and four o’clock. And, if you leave a message after five o’clock, I will get back to you the next business morning. Thank you!”

Phil tapped the red “end” button before the beep.

Helen was impressed. “Wow! He really does that? He returns calls at those times? And his customers are cool with it?”

“He does, and they are! James follows that schedule daily like a Swiss watch.

“It didn’t start out that way, though. It took his coworkers and customers completely by surprise. He used to be in continual chaos.”

“Not as bad as me, right?”

“Worse, actually,” Phil said bluntly. “He was in constant crisis mode, jumping from call to call, from interruption to interruption. His photo could’ve been used on the multitasking Wikipedia page!”

Helen laughed.

“Now, those same coworkers and customers have way more respect for him. They call him reliable and dependable. Rather than answer calls in the middle of a meeting or while checking emails, he returns every call just as he says in that message. He has more free time because he has fewer attention switches.

“The key for James—and now for you, Helen—is that he uses his calendar to determine when he’ll deal with interruptions in advance. Sharing that calendar with the right people manages their expectations.”

“Meaning he switchtasks less.”

“Exactly!” Phil said. “Too many of us have bought into an illusion. We believe that technology like smartphones, email, text messaging, and other digital flavors of the month are making us more productive.

“But these new tools only boost productivity when we learn to take control of them. Information is like a giant wave crashing down on us. Without a plan, we’ll get swept away, over and over again.

“The good news? We can harness all that power. We can ride that wave. The first step is to create a schedule of when we’ll use that technology. The second is to share that schedule with others.”

40

Percentage of knowledge workers who never get more than thirty minutes straight of focused time.

—Study of 185 million hours of working time conducted by RescueTime

Chapter Eleven

The Truth

“We set out what’s going to be our work time versus our foundation time versus family time, and we’ll reassess that…sometimes every week.”

—Melinda Gates

Phil tapped his phone a few times and then turned his attention back to Helen. “Before we wrap up today’s training, I emailed you one more exercise I’d like to walk you through. Can you print out the attachment I sent?”

“Okay.” Helen turned to her computer. “Anything to get this switchtasking monkey off my back.”

“I’ve found that people make positive changes faster when they see the truth of their situation—the big picture. Seeing your ‘personal truth’ clearly will be a more powerful motivator than listening to me try to tell you how to change.”

The printer whirred to life and began printing Phil’s attachment as he continued. “So, rather than me telling you what you should do differently, we’re going to do an exercise to help you discover your personal truth. At the end, you can make an informed choice about what to change about your time management.”

“Sounds mysterious,” Helen said. “I’m game.”

Phil grabbed the page off the printer tray and showed Helen:

“We’re going to take a look at how you spend your time.”

“At work?” Helen asked.

“In your life, as a whole,” Phil replied. “We can look at your working hours in a future meeting. For now, let’s stick to your overall week. You’ll notice that this worksheet already has a few categories that we all share in common.”

Helen picked up her pen and got it ready. “Okay, Phil. Let’s do this.”

Phil smiled. “First, we’ll fill out the Activity column. This is where we categorize the different things you do in an average week.”

“What does Lost Time mean, and why have I already lost seven hours?” Helen asked, pointing to the row.

“Lost Time is the average time everyone loses in a day doing things we barely notice,” Phil explained. “As you can see in the Boundary column, this includes things like scratching your nose, getting up from a chair, adjusting your clothing, using the bathroom, and so on. I’ve found the average person loses around an hour per day doing these things.”

“Okay, so I’m supposed to categorize all of the activities that I do on a weekly basis.” Helen stared at the paper for a few moments. “Give me a hint, Phil. What have other people listed?”

“I’ve seen things like family time, community service, religious observance, physical exercise, housework, childcare, date nights with the spouse, or even hobbies like music or building model trains,” Phil offered.

“Got it,” Helen said as she began filling out the Activity column.

“Done,” she said after a few minutes.

“Great,” Phil said. “Now for the Boundary column. You’ll notice that some boundaries are already filled in. For example, next to Work, it says ‘Primary job work-related activities, including travel to and from office.’ ”

“You included travel in the Work category?” Helen asked, surprised.

“Yes. For clarity, I included travel time as part of the ‘Work’ category to avoid any categories overlapping or any times counted twice. It’s a matter of preference.

“For instance,” Phil continued, “some people would say that family time includes date nights with a spouse, while others might say that family time is time with the kids and date nights is its own category. It really doesn’t matter how you define your activities. What does matter is that you’re clear about the differences between each category. This will help a lot when we estimate your time use.”

“Okay,” Helen said. “So, for me, personal recreation means the time I spend just doing my own thing. I like to scrapbook and read in my free time, so I wrote that under Boundary. Does that work?”

Phil nodded. Helen continued to add a few more lines in the Boundary column for each activity category.

When she finished, Phil looked over her worksheet briefly. “Great! The next thing we need to do is estimate how much time you spend on each activity per week. ‘Lost Time’ is already added for you under the Current and Future columns, at an average of one hour per day for a total of seven hours per week.

“The next activity listed is ‘Sleep.’ Since this is one of the easiest to calculate, let’s start there. How much sleep do you get in an average night?”

Helen faked a yawn. “Clearly not as much as I need!” She thought for a moment and then wrote “49” in the “Current” column for Sleep. “I figure about six hours on weeknights, then a little more on weekends, for an average of seven hours per night.”

“Sounds reasonable to me.” Phil pointed to the next Activity rows. “Now, go ahead and fill out the time you’re spending in the rest of your activities. But remember to keep an eye on the Boundary column to avoid double-counting any of your time.

“One last tip: don’t worry about the total right now. Just give it your best guesstimate. We’ll adjust the total at the end.”

Helen spent the next ten minutes penciling her notes onto the worksheet. Several times, she had to erase her first guesses to adjust her estimates. Finally, she turned the page around for Phil to see and said, “All right, I’m done.”

Phil barely glanced at the page before asking, “Before we go on, take a look at your estimates for each activity. Do they seem fairly accurate to you?”

Helen turned the page back to carefully review her chart. “Sure. It looks right to me. What’s the total?”

Phil opened the calculator app on his smartphone and added everything up. “Your total is 190,” he said, placing the phone on the table so she could see. “How many hours are there in a week?”

Helen thought for a moment, and then did the math on Phil’s phone. “Seriously? There’s 168 hours in a week. Boy, was I off!”

Phil took the page and held it up so they could both see it. “Part of the reason we do this exercise is to see how well you estimate your time. People who’ve been switchtasking for a long time develop this distorted sense of how long things actually take.”

Helen flipped her pencil onto the table and threw her hands up. “Well, I’m about twenty-two hours per week distorted! No wonder it feels like I’m always a day behind!”

Phil put the worksheet down, took Helen’s pencil, and wrote the following phrase at the top of the page:

He pushed the paper back in front of Helen, who read it out loud.

“There is only one timeline. There is only one you.”

“It’s amazing to me how many people think they can ignore this basic truth, Helen,” Phil said good-naturedly. “Switchtasking is just one of the ways they try to violate this truth. It’s also done by not scheduling travel time, double-booking, and attempting to get sixty-five minutes’ worth of work into sixty minutes.”

“Or 190 hours’ worth of stuff into a 168-hour week!” Helen joked.

“That’s the truth of time, Helen. There are always sixty minutes in an hour, just twenty-four hours in a day, and only 168 hours in a week. It doesn’t matter what you or I do; we can never change this truth. But what we can do is find the best way to operate within the time we’ve got.”

Sensing Helen’s concern, Phil added, “You’re not alone, by the way. Most of my clients are shocked when they realize they haven’t been living this truth.”

Helen studied her worksheet again. “So, if we only have 168 hours in a week, how on earth did I get to 190 hours? Either I’ve magically figured out how to break the laws of time by adding more hours to my week, or there are twenty-two extra hours of activities I thought I was doing but I’m really not.”

“There’s no magic going on here, so let’s look at your worksheet and figure this out.” Phil turned the sheet around so they could both see it. “Typically, when I see other impossible guesstimates like this, the error is usually in the largest numbers. Where was your most generous time estimate?”

Helen pointed to the 70 in the “Work” row. “You mean this?”

“Possibly.” Phil pointed the pencil to another row. “The second highest activity is sleep with 49 hours. Do you still think that’s accurate?”

Helen nodded, and he continued. “You also estimated that you spend about 28 hours a week in the ‘Family Time’ activity. That’s an average of about 4 hours per day. Is that right?”

“I think so,” Helen answered cautiously.

“I hear your hesitation, so let’s focus on this,” Phil said. “Tell me what spending time with your family is like.”

“Well, I get home around six or seven o’clock. If my husband and kids are home, we eat dinner together. After dinner, we hang out in the living room and watch TV or play a game or something. Of course, I spend more time with them on weekends than I do on weekdays.”

A brief sign of realization flashed across Helen’s face. “Except…”

“What’s on your mind?”

Helen frowned. “I’m also catching up on industry news online or checking my email.”

She paused for what seemed like a full minute. “I’m switchtasking on my family, aren’t I? So maybe I’m not really spending twenty-two hours with them per week. It’s probably more like seven or eight.”

Phil sat quietly for a moment, and Helen continued. “I’m probably overestimating some other categories too. I’m really just switchtasking by combining them with work. I should probably change that, shouldn’t I?”

“Helen, this exercise isn’t about telling you what you should or shouldn’t be doing with your time. That’s not why I’m here. It’s simply about making you aware of the choices you’re currently making. Then, you can decide what—if anything—you want to change.”

Helen was listening to what Phil was saying but seemed distracted. “I know, Phil. I’m telling myself that very thing. But it’s not how I really want to be spending time with my family, or my community, or any of these activities.

“What’s really upsetting to me is how long it’s been like this. I thought just being home and present with my kids was good parenting. But I’ve just been working that whole time. I’ve been there with my kids, but let’s be honest—I haven’t really been there for them.”

Helen paused for another moment, then sighed. “You know, Phil, now I know why Tracy’s interaction with Jason the intern bothered me so much. It’s the way I am with my kids! I practically ignore them. I remember one of my daughters giving me the same dejected look that Jason had as Tracy walked away.” She shook her head. “That’s sad.”

“This is your choice. Everyone is different. Is spending more focused time with your family a priority for you?”

Helen nodded. “It is. It absolutely is a priority.”

“I can see that,” Phil affirmed. “Now, here’s the good news. Because you have a better understanding of your truth about time, you can now choose to adjust your time budget. You can regain control!”

Helen nodded in agreement.

Phil tapped the pencil eraser on the last column heading on the chart. “Let’s move on to the ‘Future’ column. You can create a budget for how you want to spend your time in the future.”

“Easier said than done,” Helen muttered.

“But not as hard as you may think,” Phil said with a smile. “Is it okay if I give you a little homework?”

“Sure,” Helen said.

“Later tonight, take a few quiet moments to yourself. Create your new time budget for how you’ll spend time beginning next month.” Phil wrote the number 168 at the bottom of the column. “Just make sure you don’t go over 168 hours. I’m a consultant—not a wizard.”

“Why next month?” Helen asked through a smile. “Why not tomorrow?”

“I like where your head is at. If you can put this budget into action tomorrow or any time before next month, go for it. However, I’ve seen that this kind of change rarely happens overnight. It’ll probably take a few weeks for the changes to take hold. It’s better to make a conservative timeline and stick to it than to be too optimistic—”

“And be mad at myself if I don’t follow through. Been there, done that,” Helen said with a laugh. “Okay. For now, I’ll just stick to doing this assignment for tonight.”

“Good plan,” Phil said. “That’s the end of today’s session, Helen. But I’d like to follow up with you about this worksheet. Can we do that?”

Helen turned to her computer and opened her calendar. “Yes, of course! How about tomorrow at nine o’clock again?”

“Perfect.” Phil typed the appointment into his smartphone’s calendar app. “I’ll see you in the morning. Great work today, Helen.”

“More than 40 percent of consumers access their smartphone for some use in the middle of the night—after having gone to sleep and before waking up (at the planned time in the morning, that is). The reliance on smartphones seems likely to increase as more features become available.”

—Global mobile consumer trends survey, Deloitte

Chapter Twelve

The Deal

“Multitasking: A polite way of telling someone you haven’t heard a word they said.”

—UrbanDictionary.com, definition submitted by “workinglate”

Phil opened the car door and tossed his bag over to the passenger seat. As he was about to get in, he heard a shout from the GreenGarb entrance.

“Hey, Phil, hold on a second!” Sally was jogging over to Phil’s car. “I’m glad I caught you. I needed to ask you a question about all this stuff.”

“No problem. What’s on your mind?”

“So, Tracy and I were discussing what you’re trying to do with Helen. We think you’re wasting your time.”

“Okay,” Phil said, a little concerned about where this might go.

“Here’s the thing,” Sally continued, “it’s fine chatting about this stuff in a controlled and closed office where you and Helen are alone and uninterrupted. We’ve both seen it before: some new consultant works with Helen on some trendy concepts. Then someone sends an office-wide motivational ‘rah-rah’ email. We’ll get super-pumped up for about a week, and then it fizzles back to exactly how it was.”

“Yep! Seminar letdown,” Phil said, almost instinctively.

“Huh?”

“What you just described is what I call ‘seminar letdown.’ It’s when people get excited when they attend a training or watch a course or read a book, but don’t follow through.”

Phil closed the car door and continued. “Is this really about Helen, though? How are you with all this, Sally? I got the impression you weren’t enjoying the training.”

“I know, I know,” Sally replied. “And after our little timed exercise up there, I realized I could probably try a little harder in the focus department. All I’m saying is we need to be realistic about realities, here! I’ve been at GreenGarb from the beginning. Helen hasn’t changed at all for years.”

“I get it, Sally. Seriously,” Phil said. “I find making change last often comes down to having someone provide follow-up over the long haul. There’s no substitute for good old-fashioned one-on-one coaching. And that’s my job. I’ll be here for Helen. I will follow up. How about we make a deal?”

Sally folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Deal? What kind of deal, Phil?”

“What kind of food do you like?” Phil asked.

“Food? Okay. If you must know, despite appearances, I’m a meat-and-potatoes person. I’ll order a steak over a salad any day of the week!”

“Noted,” Phil replied. “And what’s the best steakhouse around here?”

“The best? That would be Carvemasters.”

Phil pulled out his smartphone and made a few notes. “Here’s the deal, Sally. In three months, I’m going to follow up with you to see how Helen’s progressing.

“We’ll do this on the honor system. If you can honestly say she hasn’t changed, I’ll buy you a gift card for dinner for two at Carvemasters.

“If, however, Helen has made significant positive changes, I want a dozen doughnuts. Cake with vanilla frosting and rainbow sprinkles, to be exact.”

Sally chuckled. “What are you, six? Please tell me you’ve got kids and you’ll be sharing these.”

Phil winked. “I do have kids, and I will share…a couple. We all have our vices. Mine just happens to be eating food that reminds me of my childhood.”

Phil stuck out his hand. “Sound fair?”

Sally shook Phil’s hand with confidence. “I like my steak medium-rare, sir!”

“The people who are most likely to multitask harbor the illusion they are better than average at it, when in fact they are no better than average and often worse.”

—David Strayer, professor of Cognition and Neural Science, University of Utah

Chapter Thirteen

The Change

7 hours 22 minutes

The average amount of times teens spend on their phones each day.

4 hours 44 minutes

The average amount of time kids aged eight to twelve spend on their phones each day.

—The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens

When Phil arrived the next morning, the receptionist greeted him warmly. “Good morning, Phil. Helen is expecting you. You remember the way, yes?”

Phil wandered back through the open office maze and found his way to Helen’s private office. This time, the door was open, but no one was inside. He found his chair and sat down to wait.

It wasn’t too long before Helen burst into the room, her face full of excitement. “I’ll have you know, Phil, that I spent time with my family last night and I didn’t switchtask! I got home and announced we were going out to dinner. I told them that no phones were allowed. They were shocked…and a little annoyed at first.”

Phil laughed as Helen continued. “To break my pattern of doing things, we went to the restaurant. From time to time I was tempted to think about work, but I kept bringing my focus back to them. I listened. It was wonderful!”

Phil stood and applauded. “Way to go, Helen! What did they think?”

“At first, I think they thought I was kidding. My daughter said, ‘Who are you, and what have you done with my Mom?’ When I told them to put on their shoes, they kept asking what we were celebrating!” Helen smiled. “When they figured out I was really spending time with them and giving them the attention they deserve, their attitudes changed. They opened up. They were happy, and so was I.”

“That’s a wonderful story,” Phil said. “It’s not unusual for someone to be surprised when they notice a behavior change like that. In time, as they notice you’re no longer multitasking—”

“Switchtasking, Phil.” Helen corrected. “Come on, man!”

“Of course—switchtasking.” Phil grinned. “The more your family knows you’re going to be focused in the moment with them, the more they’ll respect and trust you. While it’s a process that takes time, it’s worth the effort.”

Helen sighed and plopped down into her chair. “All I know is that I felt wonderful. No, I feel wonderful. It’s the first time in years that I’ve been so…present…with my family.”

She paused. “I was stunned to realize how much I had been switchtasking on them. I think most people do it to each other all the time, and they’re not even aware of it!”

“That’s a big part of why multitasking is worse than a lie,” Phil explained. “When we act like multitasking is acceptable, we can seriously damage our relationships.

“And it’s not just about families. It’s about coworkers and friends. It’s about the cashier at the store—a real person—who we treat like just another task to check off our list. This gradual damage to relationships is just another cost of switchtasking.”

Helen sat forward in her chair. “Hey, Phil, have you ever thought about what switchtasking costs a company in terms of sales?”

“Sales?” Phil replied in surprise. “What do you mean?”

Helen smiled and began speaking with enthusiasm. “Well, if my employees switchtask while dealing with our customers, that’s got to hurt customer satisfaction. Even if it happens a little, it’s possible customers might feel like we don’t care.”

“Interesting,” Phil said.

“Let’s think about the sales process for a minute,” Helen continued. “If our sales reps switchtask when dealing with our customers, like retail store owners, it can cost us over time. Customers who feel we don’t care about them, sooner or later they’re going to take their business to a company that does.”

Intrigued, Phil opened a blank note on his smartphone. “Hold on, I’m going to jot this down.”

“Ah, now the student has become the master!” Helen teased. “So, can I charge you for this meeting?”

“No comment,” Phil replied dryly.

“[You] will never, ever be able to overcome the inherent limitations in the brain for processing information during multitasking. It just can’t be, any more than the best of all humans will ever be able to run a one-minute mile.”

—David E. Meyer, PhD, Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, in an interview with CNN

Chapter Fourteen

The Steps

“Someday I’ll tell you about why I wrote more than 1,500 Gmail filters. They throw away more than three hundred emails every day. Every day. It’s the best thing I ever did for my productivity.”

—Robert Scoble, futurist and technology strategist

“Okay, so now that you’ve taught me something this morning,” Phil continued, “what can I teach you? What questions do you have?”

Helen dove in with enthusiasm. “Well, you’ve thoroughly convinced me that multitasking is a lie. I’m a believer. So, how do I get others to this point? I’m ready to start pumping the brakes, so to speak, while others are still going at top speed and won’t slow down.”

“I can help,” Phil replied. “Let’s start by listing what you know you can do so far. Can we use that whiteboard on the wall?”

“Be my guest,” Helen gestured graciously toward the wall.

Phil walked over to the whiteboard and uncapped a marker. “Let’s do a quick review. Pop quiz time, Helen. What steps can you take to stop switchtasking?”

Phil jotted down Helen’s bullet points as she listed them out loud. Phil noted the following on the whiteboard:

•Recognize multitasking is a lie.

•Understand the difference between backtasking and switchtasking.

•Know the truth about your use of weekly time.

•Create a new and realistic weekly time budget.

•Schedule regular, recurring appointments with key people.

•Set expectations. Create personal “store hours” so people know your availability.

“That’s a great start,” Phil said as he wrote on the board with the marker.

“I can see how those few actions will make a big difference,” Helen added. “What can we add to this switchbuster list, Phil?”

“Switchbusters,” Phil laughed as he made another note on his phone. “I like it.”

“You can pay me a commission every time you use it,” Helen joked.

“Alright. Here are some other helpful suggestions from some of my clients.” Phil wrote a few more bullet points on the board:

•Resist making active switches.

•Minimize all passive switches.

•Discuss and define channels and response times.

•Give people your full attention when dealing with them.

•Schedule buffer time between appointments.

•Never commit to anything without your calendar.

Phil capped the marker and turned to face Helen. “What questions do you have about these?”

“Can you define what you mean about active and passive switches?” Helen asked.

“Active switches are the ones you choose to make. Remember yesterday, when we discussed a typical hour in your day? The switches you initiated were active switches,” Phil explained.

“Remind yourself to resist switching from one task to another whenever you’re in control of your schedule. Stay focused on the task at hand, no matter how bright and shiny the object that comes to mind.”

“Right,” Helen said. “Basically, I need to control myself. I need to slow down or resist the need for constant personal switches.”

“You’ve got it.” Phil nodded. “Now, if active switches are internal, passive switches are external. They come from someone or something else. You can actively minimize these by silencing alerts for new emails, for example.”

“Easy enough. What about ChatWide? That seems even worse than email,” Helen groaned. “And what about texting? My kids are glued to their screens all the time!”

Phil laughed. “It’s helpful to remember that our goal is to reduce switches, not eliminate them. That’s a reasonable approach.

“This leads us to the next point: ‘Discuss and define channels and response times.’ There are dozens of ways people can contact each other. But each channel has a different purpose, and each channel should have a different expectation about how long it should take to reply.”

“I see,” Helen said. “So maybe ChatWide should be used for questions that need a reply within an hour, email within a day…like that? Maybe texts are just for my personal life?”

“That’s the general idea. There’s no right or wrong answer here. But there is confusion. A lot of confusion. And it all stems from each of us assuming the other person uses a channel in the same way we do.

“Just like with voicemail, we want to define how long each of us should expect an answer for each channel. The problem is, if you don’t reply to a ChatWide message fast enough, then Sally—or anyone—will send you a text message. And if you don’t reply to that text message fast enough, she calls you. And if you don’t reply to that call—”

“Then she comes and beats down my door.” Helen sighed. “I see what you’re saying. Confusion about channels perpetuates switchtasking.”

“You’ve got it. One more thing to consider,” Phil added. “Messaging is great for brief questions with brief responses. One switch, a second switch, and you’re done. But extended conversations with a lot of back and forth…?”

“Ouch,” Helen said. “I see what you’re saying. Those are probably best for a phone call, right? Less switching cost?”

“Exactly,” Phil replied.

“Wow,” Helen said, eyes widening. “We need to have a company meeting about that one. It’s going to take some time to figure this out!”

“True,” Phil said. “But the time you spend will be worth it. Anytime one of your team members improves productivity by just 2 percent, they gain an entire workweek’s worth of extra disposable time. A discussion like this will yield you and your company tons of free time.”

Helen wrote herself a note. “I’ll get on that immediately.”

Phil let her finish and then added, “Can I offer a word of caution before you begin implementing strategies to curb switchtasking at GreenGarb?”

“Sure. What is it?”

“Keep in mind that you and I have had extensive discussions and training on the evils of switchtasking.” Phil leaned forward in his chair slightly. “Your managers don’t yet understand passive interruptions and switchtasking.”

Helen nodded. “Right. My managers are still switchtasking—multitasking, in their lingo—every day, like they’re lacing up new sneakers. They still believe it’s a good thing!”

“Exactly,” Phil said. “First, they’ll need to see that multitasking isn’t a badge of honor or a source of pride. They’ll need to know that it’s actually hurting them and their careers. Until that happens, they’ll resist any changes against it. Remember how passionately Sally resisted the idea at first?”

Phil leaned back in a moment of contemplation. “It’s not their fault, really. They’ve been brainwashed for so long about how multitasking is good. It’s become a source of pride with humble bragging rights.”

“It was definitely like that for me,” Helen added.

“Right. Now, consider how much your perspective changed from just two days. What did it take for you to recognize that multitasking was worse than a lie?”

Helen looked over at the whiteboard with Phil’s notes. “I guess it was the process you took me through. I had to see the truth, one step at a time.”

“You’ve got it,” Phil said. “Remember, helping people understand the simple truth first will help them change their behavior faster than trying to tell them what to do. Great leaders show, rather than tell.

“What if I had come in yesterday and told you that you needed to spend more time with your family? Or what if I had just told you that you had to focus more when talking to people?”

Helen chuckled. “I would’ve taken you on an unfocused walk to GreenGarb’s exit!”

Phil nodded. “Your approach with your managers should be no different.”

“Having multiple sources of technology at your fingertips and available at all times…is almost a guarantee of a reduction in performance and productivity.”

—Dr. Matthew Cruger, director of the Learning and Development Center at the Child Mind Institute

Chapter Fifteen

The Systems

“Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, add what is specifically your own.”

—Bruce Lee

Helen placed a hand under her chin. “What are your thoughts about helping me with this? It might be better coming from you than me.”

“What did you have in mind?” Phil asked.

“I’m wondering if there’s a way you can teach this to a group,” Helen said. “Specifically, a group of my managers. Is that something you can do?”

“Of course, I can help with that.” Phil pulled out his smartphone. “Let me check my calendar.”

“Right.” Helen pointed at the whiteboard. “Never commit to anything without your calendar.” She looked at her smartphone and then her computer as if she was trying to choose. “What if I have a calendar, but I’m not using it as well as I should be?”

Phil gave a knowing grin. “People often ask me for my favorite app. The one killer tool that will change their life and save them time. In the end, there’s nothing more powerful than the simple, humble calendar.

“It’s shocking to discover how few people use calendars at all, and even fewer know how to use them properly. For example, they schedule appointments back to back with no breathing room in-between. Or they make a verbal commitment to someone without checking their calendar. In both cases, they’re going to end up switchtasking because overcommitment causes split attention.”

“Been there, done that,” Helen said with a shrug.

Phil tapped on his smartphone to open his calendar app. “Before we schedule a group training session with your managers, can I make a suggestion?”

“Please.”

Phil grabbed a scrap sheet of paper and a pen and began writing. “There are two major steps to getting your company off its switchtasking dependency. One of them you’ve already suggested: we can educate your people on the evils of multitasking. The other is making some changes and improvements to GreenGarb’s way of doing things. I’m referring to your systems.”

He showed Helen his sketch.

Helen looked at the page for a few seconds. “By business systems, you mean our processes, right? The way we do things internally among staff? The way we manufacture and communicate with each other, and so on?”

Phil gave Helen a thumbs-up. “Correct. Why did you put the effort into creating those systems for GreenGarb?”

“Well,” Helen mused, “mainly because without those business systems, employees will do things however they want—it would be chaos! But not just within these walls; our dealings with customers would be inconsistent, too.”

“Precisely.” Phil nodded. “Let’s keep that in mind and continue. Perhaps more important than improving business systems is first helping you, the leader of this company, get your personal systems in order.”

“Okay,” Helen replied. “What personal systems are you talking about?”

“Your personal systems are how you operate as one person: how you manage email and voicemail, the ideas in your head, your workspace or office organization, how you use a calendar, and so on. Without clear, solid, personal systems in place, what happens?”

Helen sighed. “What happens is what’s been happening to me. I’m at the mercy of everyone and everything else.” After thinking for a moment, she added, “It’s the same as with my business. Without systems, I become inconsistent.”

Phil added more to the page:

“Helen, as I walked through GreenGarb to get to your office, I saw managers and other employees darting around like someone had yelled ‘fire.’ I saw a company with stress and tension as its culture.” Phil paused, allowing that to sink in. “I saw a company reflecting a culture created by its leader.”

“Ouch. That’s kind of blunt. But you’re right, even though I hate to admit it. We’ve known it’s an issue, and we’ve tried almost everything to try and change our culture. We put some fun things in the break room; we’ve added a few more company parties to blow off steam.” Helen shrugged. “What am I missing here?”

“Those are all great things to improve the environment people work in,” Phil affirmed. “But environment is not the same thing as culture. You might be missing my meaning.”

“Okay, so tell me what you mean.”

“Any company—any organization—is a reflection of its leader. Let me show you a different way.” He added something to his sketch and showed her.

“Oh! Okay! Now I get it. You mean my personal systems have an impact on our business systems. My way of doing things affects the company’s way of doing things. And vice-versa, right? The two influence each other?”

“Right.” Phil knocked on the table for emphasis. “But changing a group of people is harder than changing one person. So, if you want to change this company, where’s the best place to start?”

“Me,” Helen said.

“You nailed it,” Phil replied. “And, to your credit, you intuitively recognized this—”

“Which is why I brought you in,” she added.

“Exactly,” Phil said. “I started our sessions with multitasking because it’s such a common and familiar topic,” Phil continued. “It’s also an easy place for almost anyone to begin making positive changes. Our personal systems, like how to improve our use of a calendar, are often the most obvious and tangible areas to begin doing that.”

“Got it. So, what do you recommend?”

“Before we start training your employees, let’s finish the job you and I started,” Phil said. “What you’ve learned about switchtasking has already had a great impact on you personally and on your family. Let’s focus our efforts on you first—for a while, at least—and then we can turn our attention to the whole company.”

Helen continued Phil’s thought without missing a beat. “And that way, it’s going to have an impact on my business. My people will see that I’ve changed personal systems. I’m going to protect my time and minimize interruptions.

“They’re going to learn to save their questions for our recurring meetings. They’ll see that I’m focused on them and paying attention. They’ll see that I’m not switchtasking as much as I used to.

“And ideally, my management team will recognize the change and begin to follow my example, as your diagram here implies.”

“Yes. Over time they will,” Phil assured her. “Later on, we can provide the training that will help them change their own personal systems.”

Helen jumped in. “Because by changing the manager, we’ll also change their divisions, won’t we? Isn’t each division a reflection of its management?”

Phil was impressed. “Oh! Another nugget. Good one, Helen.” He tapped out another note on his smartphone, and then opened his calendar app. “Are you ready to finish the work we started? Are you ready to build your personal systems?”

“Yessir! I’m ready,” Helen said.

Phil grinned and pointed to her computer. “Time to use that calendar. Let’s set up our recurring meetings together.”

566

The average number of times a person switches applications daily.

—Study by Mark, Iqbal, Czerwinski, and Johns for Microsoft Research

Chapter Sixteen

The Follow-Up

“It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur.”

—Nelson Mandela

After Phil stepped away from the podium, the conference room filled with brief applause.

As he stepped away, Helen spoke enthusiastically to several GreenGarb employees who encircled her.

As he was packing up his bag, Phil took a few moments to reflect on the last three months since his initial meeting with Helen.

Following that second day session, they’d met on a regular basis. Phil helped Helen build her personal systems and establish a new time budget. Then, he helped Helen schedule recurring meetings with her key employees—starting with Sally, of course.

After Helen mastered her personal systems, she and Phil had agreed that the time was right to begin training management. He worked with them as a team and individually to help them follow the example Helen had set.

At first, many employees didn’t know what to think about all these gradual changes. They reported that they were used to being half-ignored by their leaders and managers. Over time, they reported that the culture changes were more than just another post-seminar, zealous phase. The company’s newfound focus was here to stay.

It wasn’t a big change with catchy slogans. It was quiet and meaningful. Helen and her management team were simply listening. They gave their team members time and attention.

Follow-through on tasks and projects was also steadily, gradually improving. As Helen had predicted, sales also improved. As reps began treating people with more respect, customers began sensing they were more than just a transaction to GreenGarb.

Helen paused her conversation for a moment to give Phil a quick thumbs-up. Phil smiled and returned the gesture.

As he turned to head out the door, a familiar face approached. “Don’t forget this,” Sally said as she handed Phil his coat. “You’ll need it. It’s raining something fierce out there.”

“Almost forgot. Thank you very much, Sally,” Phil said warmly. “I appreciate you looking out for me.”

“Don’t mention it.”

As he pulled his coat over his shoulders, Phil said, “You know, we need to set up a time to settle our little wager. I think you owe me a doughnut or two.”

Sally laughed. “You think so, Phil? Hmm. Maybe. Helen’s better, I’ll give you that. But I’m still withholding my final judgment.”

“I would expect nothing less from you, Sally,” Phil said, picking up his bag. “If you see that Helen’s changes haven’t lived up to your expectations, there’s a medium-rare filet mignon waiting for you and a plus-one.”

“We’ll see,” Sally said, waving as she turned to speak with a colleague.

It took Phil a while to extract himself from the conference room while he shook hands and answered some questions from the other employees. As he stepped through the building entrance and into the intense downpour, he quickly realized his coat wouldn’t keep him as dry as he’d hoped.

Phil made a mad dash for his car while feeling around his coat pocket for his key fob. He pressed a button, then his car chirped and flashed its lights at him through the storm.

Throwing open the door and tossing his bag over to the passenger side, he was about to plop down into the driver’s seat when he noticed something sitting there, wrapped in colorful cellophane.

Phil laughed as he picked up the glass plate. He sat down and closed the door. Carefully, he peeled the taped notecard off the package and began to read:

Phil—

Congratulations! I haven’t had to wait outside Helen’s office in over a month!

So…you win.

Sally

P.S. The doughnuts are store-bought. The plate is mine. Please wash and return it on your next GreenGarb visit. I promise not to break into your car again.

Phil took one bite of vanilla-frosted, rainbow-sprinkled cake doughnut and then put it back on the plate beside him. He smiled as he started the car.

Worksheets

Switchtasking Exercise

Result

The following quick exercise will help you understand how switchtasking negatively impacts efficiency.

Note: You can also download a full-sized version of this at: DaveCrenshaw.com/worksheet.

Steps

Prepare

1.Along with a pen or pencil, have the worksheet on page 129 ready. You may make multiple copies of this worksheet as necessary for your personal use.

2.Have a timer ready that displays seconds. For best results, have another person time you.

3.See page 55 for a completed worksheet example.

First Pass

1.Read the instructions below before starting.

2.In the first row, copy the phrase “Multitasking is worse than a lie.”

3.After copying the entire phrase in the first row, then switch to the second row and write all numbers between 1–27.

4.Ready, set, go! Start the timer.

5.After you have completed the last number, 27, write down your approximate finishing time to completion at the end of the second row.

Second Pass

1.Get your timer, worksheet, and pen or pencil ready again.

2.Read the instructions below before starting.

3.In the third row, copy the phrase “Multitasking is worse than a lie,” but for every letter you write, switch to the fourth row and write the corresponding number. For example, “M” and then “1,” “U” and then “2,” and so on, until you make the third and fourth rows look the same as the first and second rows.

4.Ready, set, go! Start the timer.

5.After you have completed the last number, 27, write down your approximate finishing time to completion at the end of the second row.

Typically, people experience the following results during the second pass:

•An increased time to completion, often a 15 to 100 percent increase in time spent.

•A decrease in work quality, including mistakes, reduction in writing quality, and ending up on the wrong number.

•An increase in stress, including feelings of frustration and annoyance.

Team Interruptions

Result

Holding brief, recurring meetings with the people who most frequently require your attention can greatly reduce the number of passive interruptions in your day.

This Team Interruptions Worksheet (pages 134–135) will help you determine which of your contacts will benefit the most from recurring meetings. You may make multiple copies of this worksheet as necessary for your personal use.

Note: You can also download a full-sized version of this at: DaveCrenshaw.com/worksheet.

Steps

1.In the Person column, write the name of each person you have contact with on a weekly basis. This includes both personal and professional contacts who are members of your “team.”

2.In the Comments column, write anything that would be helpful to remember about this relationship—for example, typical topics discussed, types of interruptions, or position title.

3.In the first Needs column under “Advisor?” write a score of 3 for this person if your position requires you to lead this person or if they are directly accountable to you. If not, score 0.

4.In the next column, “Questions?” score this person as to how often they ask you questions. Write a 0, 1, 2, or 3 using the following scale:

0 = Never

1 = Rarely

2 = Occasionally

3 = Frequently

5.Complete the remaining columns using the same scale you did for “Manage?”

•Calendar? How often do you need to coordinate calendars?

•Delegate? How often do you delegate items to them?

•Coordinate? How often do the two of you need to coordinate your efforts to achieve successful results?

•Assist? How often does this individual personally assist you in your work?

•Follow Up? How often do you need to follow up with this person to ensure their success?

6.In the Needs Score column, add up the scores for that person from all the Needs columns, and write the result.

7.After completing the previous steps for every person listed under “Work Relationship,” in the “Rank” column, enter numbered rankings that correspond to the results you calculated in the “Needs Score.” For example, if you listed five people, enter a rank of 1 to 5, where 1 represents the highest “Needs Score.”

Recurring Check-Ins

Result

After you’ve completed the Team Interruptions Worksheet, you likely have a better understanding of the need to reduce interruptions. One of the easiest ways to do this is to hold quick, scheduled, recurring meetings for quick questions.

These meetings go by many names: standing meetings, scrum meetings, one-on-one huddles, quick check-ins, and so on. Whatever you choose to call them, they are essential to reducing daily switching costs.

This Recurring Check-Ins Worksheet (pages 140-141) is to help you find a starting point for a recurring meeting schedule. Feel free to adjust this plan over time.

Note: You can also download a full-sized version of this at: DaveCrenshaw.com/worksheet.

Steps

1.Find the highest-ranked team member on the Team Interruptions Worksheet. Copy the rank, needs score, and name to the first row of the Recurring Meetings Worksheet.

2.In the Frequency column, check the box that indicates how often you’d like to begin meeting with this person. Here are some helpful guidelines:

•Most people with Needs Scores higher than 18 should likely have daily meetings.

•Those with Needs Scores from 14 to 17 can often meet with you once a week.

•Those with Needs Scores from 6 to 13 will benefit the most twice-monthly meetings; for example, every other week, first and third week of the month, etc.

•Those with Needs Scores below 6 may only require your time either once a month or on an “as needed” basis, with no regularity.

3.Determine the duration of each meeting. Use the following general guidelines:

•The higher the frequency, the shorter the meeting. In other words, daily meetings should be kept to fifteen minutes while monthly meetings can extend up to fifty minutes.

•Avoid recurring meetings for less than fifteen minutes because they are likely to get pushed off or ignored. If the meeting runs shorter, use that extra time as a buffer to prepare for your next activity.

•Avoid recurring meetings longer than fifty minutes because they are likely to provide an opportunity to waste time. The extra ten minutes of buffer will help you reduce switching cost for your next activity.

4.Get together with each person to discuss your quick meeting schedule. Determine the best day and time to meet. Try to schedule recurring meetings for when neither of you is likely to be interrupted.

5.Make sure that each of you has scheduled the appointment in your calendar by placing a checkmark in the appropriate columns of the worksheet.

6.Repeat steps 1 through 5 for the next two high-ranked names listed in your Team Interruptions Worksheet.

7.After a month, re-evaluate your progress and make schedule adjustments as needed.

8.As appropriate, add additional names from your Team Interruptions Worksheet, and repeat the steps above.

Truth of Time

Result

The Truth of Time Worksheet (page 145) will help you become aware of how you spend your 168 weekly hours.

By understanding this truth of time, you’ll be able to adjust your personal weekly time budget.

Note: You can also download a full-sized version of this at: DaveCrenshaw.com/worksheet.

Steps

1.Using the Truth of Time Worksheet, enter general terms to categorize the activities in which you partake on any given day—for example, “Family Time,” “Hobby,” “Exercise,” “Housework,” “Spiritual,” “Community Service,” and so on. Use categories that are broad enough so you do not need to use more than the rows provided.

2.In the Boundary column, define each activity. This definition will help you ensure all activities are accounted for and there is no overlap. For example, if you list both Family Time and Spouse Time as separate activities, clarify the difference between them under the Boundary column. For example, “date night with spouse” applies to Spouse time, while a “kids’ weekly karate class” counts as Family Time.

3.In the Current column, enter your estimates for how many hours in an average week you spend in each activity. Round to the nearest half-hour, if required. Pay attention to the differences in your weekend schedule when estimating. For example, if you sleep an average of seven hours every night but get an extra hour of sleep on Friday and Saturday nights, the total for the Sleep activity would be 51, not 49. During this step, do not attempt to reconcile the total to 168. Just make your best guess. You’ll be able to finetune this number in the next step.

Note: Lost Time is pre-filled for you because, in general, people unavoidably lose an hour a day due to the accumulation of small, random activities, such as standing up from a chair, getting a snack, and so on.

4.Total up all your estimates in the Current column, and then subtract that number from 168 (the total hours in a week). You will probably end up with a number like “4” or “-7.5.”

5.(If your estimate was exactly 168, skip this step.) Since there’s only one timeline and only one you, you need to bring your time estimates into balance with reality. You can do this by adding or subtracting time from different activities until your total reaches 168. The typical culprits for making errors are:

•Not clearly defining activities in the Boundary column, causing overlap between one or more activities.

•Over- or underestimating the largest blocks of time, such as sleep or work.

•Forgetting an activity and failing to account for it.

•Forgetting to account for switchtasking in your estimates. To correct this, be more specific in Boundary definitions.

6.Now that you understand how you are using your time, look for and highlight the rows you want to adjust. If you could have a perfect week, what would that week look like?

7.In the Future column, enter your newly decided time budget. Decide on a future date for when you’d like to have made this adjustment—a month usually works well.

8.Next, recheck the numbers to make sure they total 168, just as you did in steps 4 and 5.

9.Using a blank weekly calendar, create a new “ideal” template for your week. Hour by hour, enter your new time budget for each activity. As much as possible, categorize your activities using color coding, tagging, or fonts. This will help guide future decision-making.

10.Keep this calendar handy when making weekly scheduling decisions. As much as is reasonable, make choices that closely align with this budget. While it likely won’t be perfect, this tool will help you better live the truth of time.

Channel Discussion

Result

Communication channels are ways in which you and your team members talk to each other and ask questions. When people are confused about which channel is appropriate in which situation, interruptions skyrocket. By getting on the same page, you will increase productivity and uncover hidden time.

This Channel Discussion Worksheet (pages 150–151) can serve as a helpful guide for you and your team to gain clarity. This tool is best used in a group setting, when all affected team members are present.

Note: You can also download a full-sized version of this at: DaveCrenshaw.com/worksheet.

Steps

Prepare

1.If you are the team leader, let your team know that you are going to discuss how to improve workplace communication. If you are not the team leader, get their buy-in to have this discussion. Consider giving them this book as a starting point.

2.Schedule a time to hold the meeting. For most teams, they will likely take a full fifty minutes, leaving ten minutes of buffer afterward. Larger teams may require more time. Make sure the meeting will be held at least one-to-two weeks into the future, and that all team members will be able to attend.

3.Create a list of the ways in which you communicate with each other. This includes in-person, via phone, email, and so on. Add this list to the Channels column on the worksheet for a starting point. Several common channels have already been added for you.

4.The week before the meeting, send the list of channels and ask team members to be more aware of a) how often they use each channel and b) why they chose to use that channel. While people can take notes if they wish, the purpose of this request is to simply help them be mentally prepared for the discussion.

Meet

1.Have copies of the worksheet ready for all attendees or recreate it on a large whiteboard or flipchart.

2.Begin on time.

3.Discuss the importance of reducing interruptions so everyone can do more focused work. Optional: You may wish to share the Switchtasking Exercise from page 129 to illustrate the costs of workplace interruptions.

4.Share your starting list of channels you wrote on the worksheet. Ask attendees to add any channels you may have missed.

5.Optional: Ask if there are any channels being used that everyone agrees are obsolete. If so, remove them from the list and agree to no longer use them.

6.As a team, define the purpose of each channel under the Purpose column. For a few examples to start:

a.“In person”—important meetings where some training will occur.

b.“Phone”—brief back-and-forth conversations of fifteen minutes or less.

c.“Text messages”—Quick one-question, one-response communication.

d.“Internal company chat”—Group communication for project planning.

e.“Email”—Detailed written communication with attachments.

f.And so on…

7.As a team and as best you can, write down what the current expected response time is for each channel. Do this under the “Current expected response time” column. Often, there will be a lot of disagreement. This is helpful because it will illustrate why this definition of channels needed to occur and will improve group buy-in of the change.

8.As a team, use the “New expected response time” column to define what everyone’s expectation will be for each channel. This will require some back-and-forth discussion until everyone is on the same page.

9.Discuss that you will occasionally find times in which you’ll need to change the communication to a more appropriate channel. For example, if a text messaging exchange turns into an extended conversation, it may be better to switch to a phone call. Agree as a team how you will address these moments. For example, you might politely suggest, “Maybe we should move this over to (the channel name)?” Put your group answer at the bottom of the worksheet under “When we need to switch channels, we will…”

10.Answer any questions and respond to any concerns.

11.Schedule a brief follow-up meeting for review. Ideally, this should take place in four to eight weeks.

12.Send a copy of the Channel Discussion Worksheet to all attendees.

Follow-up

1.During the follow-up meeting, discuss what worked and what didn’t. Consider this question: Have we experienced a reduction in attention switches?

2.As a team, consider if any adjustments should be made to the Channel Discussion Worksheet. If changes are made, make sure everyone receives a copy of the revised worksheet.

3.If necessary, hold another follow-up in eight to twelve weeks to make further adjustments.

Sources

This book is largely based on my field experiences consulting companies around the world. However, many different studies and researchers also influenced the conclusions and recommendations found in this book. To learn more about the hidden costs and negative impact of human multitasking, please explore these detailed studies created by talented researchers.

Al-Hashimi, Zanto, and Gazzaleya. “Neural sources of performance decline during continuous multitasking.” Cortex 71 (2015): 49–57.

Altmann, E. “Brief Interruptions Spawn Errors.” MSU Today (blog). January 7, 2013. msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/brief-interruptions-spawn-errors.

Bryan College. “How are multitasking millennials impacting today’s workplace?” Bryan College. 2016. www.bryan.edu/multitasking-at-work.

Courage, M. L., A. Bakhtiar, C. Fitzpatrick, S. Kenny, and K. Brandeau. “Growing up multitasking: The costs and benefits for cognitive development.” Memorial University, Living in the “Net” Generation: Multitasking, Learning, and Development 35 (2015).

Dabbish, L., G. Mark, and V.M. González. “Why do I keep interrupting myself?: environment, habit and self-interruption.” CHI ‘11: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (May 2011): 3127–3130.

Deloitte. Global mobile consumer trends, 2nd edition. 2017.

Ehmke, R. “How Phones and Multitasking Ruin Concentration.” Child Mind. September 20, 2017. childmind.org/article/kids-shouldnt-use-phones-during-homework.

González, Victor M., and Gloria Mark. “ ‘Constant, Constant, Multi-Tasking Craziness.’ ” Proceedings of the 2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems—CHI 04 (2004): 24–29.

Hallowell, E. M. “Overloaded Circuits: Why Smart People Underperform.” Harvard Business Review. 83, no. 1 (2005): 54–62.

Hirnstein, M., F. Larøi, and J. Laloyaux. “No sex difference in an everyday multitasking paradigm.” Psychological Research 83 (2019): 286–296.

Leroy, S. “Fresh insights into workplace interruptions.” University of Washington (Bothell) (blog). February 15, 2019. www.uwb.edu/news/february-2019/task-interrupted.

MacKay, J. “The State of Work Life Balance in 2019: What we learned from studying 185 million hours of working time.” RescueTime (blog). January 24, 2019. blog.rescuetime.com/work-life-balance-study-2019/.

Mark, G., S. Iqbal, M. Czerwinski, and P. Johns. “Focused, Aroused, but so Distractible.” Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing—CSCW 15 (2015).

Mark, G., V. González, and J. Harris. “No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work.” Paper presented at Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Portland, Oregon, April 2–7, 2005.

Martin, J. “Deepak Chopra on Your ‘Super Brain,’ Work Stress and Creativity.” Forbes. December 2012. www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2012/12/20/deepak-chopra-on-your-super-brain-work-stress-and-creativity/#7ecc3cff655f.

Miller, E. “Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Multitask, According to an MIT Neuroscientist.” Fortune. December 2016. fortune.com/2016/12/07/why-you-shouldnt-multitask.

Moran, M. “Researchers Find Neural Bottleneck Thwarts Multitasking.” Vanderbilt Register. January 22, 2007. www.vanderbilt.edu/register/articles?id=31525.

Perlow L. A., C. N. Hadley, and E. Eun. “Stop the Meeting Madness.” Harvard Business Review. July/August 2017. hbr.org/2017/07/stop-the-meeting-madness.

Rideout, V., and M. B. Robb. “Media Use By Teens and Tweens.” The Common Sense Census. 2019.

Sana, F., T. Weston, N. Cepeda. “Laptop multitasking hinders classroom learning for both users and nearby peers.” Elsevier 62 (2013): 24–31.

Scoble, R. “The war on noise.” Scobleizer (blog). November 9, 2012. scobleizer.blog/2012/11/09/the-war-on-noise.

Strang, A. L., V.M. González, and G. Mark. Excuse Me: Interrupting Working Spheres. Irvine: University of California, 2004.

Strayer, D. L., F.A. Drews, and D. J. Crouch. “A Comparison of the Cell Phone Driver and the Drunk Driver.” Human Factors 48, no. 2 (2006): 381–391.

“Udemy In Depth: 2018 Workplace Distraction Report.” Udemy. research.udemy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/FINAL-Udemy_2018_Workplace_Distraction_Report_links.pdf.

Vaisman, A., and R.C. Wu. “Analysis of Smartphone Interruptions on Academic General Internal Medicine Wards. Frequent Interruptions may cause a ‘Crisis Mode’ Work Climate.” Applied Clinical Informatics 8, no. 1 (2017): 1–11.

Vregelaar, R. M. “Internet Multitasking in the Workplace: Motives and Coping Strategies.” University of Twente. October 18, 2019. essay.utwente.nl/79878.

Spread the Word

In the years since The Myth of Multitasking’s first release in 2008, so many people have experienced a reduction in stress, increased free time, and improved relationships at work and at home. It’s not that this book has changed lives so much as readers like you have shared the message with others.

You can help change lives by doing any of the following:

1.During a meeting with team members, share the multitasking exercise in this book and let them know where you found it. This is a fun way to help others see the impact switchtasking is having in their day.

2.As appropriate, consider giving this book as a gift to people you know. It was written with the goal of helping to convince the unconvinced. If you’re looking to buy bulk copies of fifty or more, please reach out to my team at books@DaveCrenshaw.com and we’ll get you the best price possible.

3.Please take a moment to leave an honest review on Amazon. Reviews have a significant impact on people finding the book and giving it a try. Use DaveCrenshaw.com/myth to quickly reach this book’s Amazon page.

Thank you!

Dave Crenshaw

The Author

Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world.

He lives in the shadow of Utah’s Rocky Mountains with his wife and three children.

Work with Dave

Online Learning

Dave’s collection of online training—including his popular productivity and leadership courses—are available through LinkedIn Learning. Visit DaveCrenshaw.com/learn to see his full library.

Speaking

Dave is available for keynote speeches, seminars, webinars, and workshops around the world. You can request more information at DaveCrenshaw.com/speak.

Mango Publishing, established in 2014, publishes an eclectic list of books by diverse authors—both new and established voices—on topics ranging from business, personal growth, women’s empowerment, LGBTQ studies, health, and spirituality to history, popular culture, time management, decluttering, lifestyle, mental wellness, aging, and sustainable living. We were recently named 2019 and 2020’s #1 fastest growing independent publisher by Publishers Weekly. Our success is driven by our main goal, which is to publish high quality books that will entertain readers as well as make a positive difference in their lives.

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Table of Contents

Copyright

Table of Contents

The Company

The Owner

The Lie

The Cost

The Origin

The Exercise

The Example

The Question

The Meeting

The Expectation

The Truth

The Deal

The Change

The Steps

The Systems

The Follow-Up

Worksheets

Sources

Spread the Word

The Author

Work with Dave