Multitasking: Productivity Boost or Distraction?
In an era of constant access to infinite distractions, and with the average attention span reaching an all-time low of 8 seconds, multitasking is an attractive concept.
Perhaps there’s no need to turn off Netflix, or stop obsessively checking your inbox. Maybe we can indeed kill two birds with one stone and get more done by doing several things at once.
Of course, for every idiom and saying, there’s always another that says the opposite (which makes you doubt the usefulness of sayings in general). It might be that multitasking isn’t best represented through a metaphor of stony avian murder, but instead through a Confucian quote: “The man who chases two rabbits catches none.” Either way, woodland creatures are inevitably due for some violence, which doesn’t seem very fair.
Determined* to get a definitive** answer, we began a thorough study*** to learn about the multitasking habits of our fellow Checkmate team members. What we found was shocking****.
*Mildly interested
**Entirely inconclusive
***Asked a few people at lunch
****Totally expected
___
Subject 1: Matt Cameron — CXO
In charge of all things pertaining to design and experience, our CXO Matt Cameron is planted firmly in the “two birds” camp, using some carefully timed multitasking to increase his productivity. “I like going into meetings and working on design tasks or emails when the current bit of the meeting conversation does not pertain to me. It helps to eliminate potentially wasted time.”
However, just as an application’s design has to support the user’s desired functions to provide a good experience, Matt notes that the setting has to be appropriate for effective multitasking. “In an open office or communal space, all the side conversations and noise make it hard for me to focus on more than one thing at a time.”
Subject 2: Kevin Corrado — Graphic Designer
Whatever Kevin’s doing, it works. His portfolio speaks for itself. While designing interfaces, sketching logos, and creating moodboards, Kevin often likes to have YouTube up on one of his three monitors. His genres of choice: angry video game commentary and “YouTube Poops”, which are abstract and slightly unsettling deconstructions of popular shows like King of the Hill.
Kevin doesn’t deny that having YouTube open at times while working can be distracting. In fact, that’s the point. “I can’t be in my work all day”, he says. The occasional YouTube video helps keep his morale high, helping him to produce better work while he gets some laughs in. As they say, all work and no play makes a Jack a dull boy.
Like Matt, Kevin also sometimes opts for a more productivity-focused method of multitasking, such as continuing to work on design projects while also sitting in on a conference call.
Subject 3: John Knight — Quality Assurance
Not everyone at Checkmate likes multitasking. John, our Quality Assurance specialist, prefers total focus. “Multitasking requires a ‘restart’ on every task you go back to,” he says. “That means you don’t just pick up where you left off; you go back a bit first. It’s inefficient.”
Given his role as Bug Wrangler in Chief and General Fixer of Mistakes, it makes sense that he would prefer to devote his full attention to one job at a time. John lives by the immortal words of Ron Swanson: “Never half-ass two things; whole-ass one thing.”
Our Verdict
In total, 60% of our 15-person office prefers multitasking to 40% who prefer to only take on one task at a time. The bird-stoners narrowly beat out the rabbit-chasers in our little study, but we’re reluctant to make any strong conclusion from this data. Ultimately, it likely comes down to each individual’s own style and habits. Some kill two birds with one stone; others focus on one rabbit at a time. As they say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Co-written with Steven Rado
