The Downside of 'Hypertasking'

Combuchan writes "An interesting article from AZ Central expounds upon the downside of 'hypertasking,' doing far too much at once, such as talking on the phone while doing office work at the Starbuck's has a whole host of negative side effects: irritability, impatience, sleeplessness, an overly extended workweek, and is largely unproductive. With wi-fi hotspots popping up everywhere and computing power shrinking, are we all doomed? Or, as the article indicates, it's possibily evolution of the mind at work."

Comments

WLAN + School

[Lord Graga]

I go to a school with WLAN and free use of laptops in class. I have experienced sleeplessness from the days where I was too much online, and it has been a little bit harder to remember what the teacher said.

On the other hand, I have found that my laptop is great for taking notes on, and that it makes my classes a lots easier.

Being busy, and being productive

[wowbagger]

I've said this before, but I feel it bears repeating.

There is a difference between "being busy" and "being productive", and too damn many people don't know the difference.

I work with a guy who cannot go five minutes without being on the phone. He will be on business trips and call me to tell me how well a demo went. If there were no problems I really DON'T need to be interrupted in my work - it can wait until you get back, Rob. He will call me as he is driving in to work (a 10 minute drive) to tell me he wants to talk to me when he gets in.

He is the sort of person who feels that, if he is not talking to someone, writing a proposal, reading a proposal, etc., that he is not being productive.

Now, when he and I travel, I use the time waiting in the airport to review in my mind the things that will need to happen when we get to the customer, or long-range design plans, or just plain relax - so that when I need to work, I can do so at 100%.

All these people "hypertasking" - driving down the road making business calls that they have to "follow up on" because they cannot make proper notes, or don't have access to their information - in other words, wasting time. Wait until you can make the call, and resolve the issue with one call.

In short, be smart-lazy. Go read Heinlein's "The man who was too lazy to fail" in Time Enough For Love and be like him. When you do something, do it so as to spend as little work as possible to achive as much gain as possible. Sometimes, putting something off till tomorrow is better than doing it today (if putting it off will allow you to solve it once and for all, and trying to do it today means revisiting it tomorrow anyway).

People bitch about not having any "free time", yet every study done shows that we actually do have more "leasure time", but we fill it with so much crap that we have no "free time" left. If you feel overworked, if you feel like you have no free time, then examine all the things you do, and ask yourself "Do I *really* need to be doing this now, or am I just trying to be busy?"

Re:The trick is to make technology your slave

[Paleomacus]

Not if he accepts that others may be in an out of contact state. The man in question probably leaves his phone on when he is expecting to recieve a call he wants to catch.

This guy sounds like me. For me, leaving a message for someone is sufficient contact. I respect other people's disconnectedness.

Re:The trick is to make technology your slave

[CanadianCrackPot]

Indeed some of my bosses wonder why they can't get a hold of my during my times off. It's for the simple reason that its my time off an I AM NOT going to work thank you very much.