Everyday Hell: Living and Working in Multitasking Mode. Multitasking: Can Anyone Be Caesar?

Multitasking is the requirement of the present time. We must manage everything, do it efficiently, a lot and on time. Some people easily live in this mode, while others cannot organize their work effectively at all.

Of course, we attribute multitasking more to work matters. Therefore, I would like to look at some practical tips that will help you be better and stronger.

1. Multitasking is not cool. Cool is when you complete any task you start with very high quality. Then you take on another task and do it again. Finish everything you start. When you answer the call, be 100% involved in the dialogue. You read the letter in the mail - give an answer. And so is any matter, no matter how insignificant.
2. Plan your day, week, month, etc. Write down all the tasks that need to be done. Then rank them by importance and speed of execution. Accordingly, first of all, do those things that can be completed quickly and easily. You will see that the list of tasks has become much easier. But there are still difficult tasks in it - break them into parts, so you can move little by little every day towards completing a large and complex task.
3. Set reminders for yourself on your phone or computer. If you realize that your calendar is full, or you forget many things, then feel free to set yourself reminders. This way you will work better and accomplish more.

It often happens that you have done a lot, but in fact have not completed anything. This happens due to the fact that you were distracted by many things at the same time, that is, you did not concentrate and did not approach the task well. Or you didn’t optimize the execution of a task, for example, you held a meeting for too long or took on a new task, although you understand that you don’t have time to do a lot on time. It is very important to evaluate your actual employment; standardizing your day (timing) will help with this. Try writing down your entire day for a couple of days, from the first to the last minute. You can evaluate your own inefficiency.

In general, a huge problem with humanity is that no one values ​​the time of others. This manifests itself in many ways. An example of how this is reflected in work:

You wrote a letter and indicated that you were waiting for a response from the addressee, but he, in turn, did not respond. At the same time, you cannot let go of the task because you have not yet been answered. You write again, call and ask for an answer. It is obvious that you have wasted a lot of time.

Your manager/colleague organized a meeting that lasted two hours, although it was planned for 20 minutes, it turns out that 1 hour 40 minutes is time that was spent ineffectively. You had to reschedule previously scheduled tasks and think about when to finish your today's tasks.

Therefore, it is extremely important to think about your colleagues, it is important not to steal the time of others.

The world overloads us with information and tasks so much that we simply forgot how to focus. We check social networks a hundred times a day. And we now have problems that other people used to solve. For example, it is now possible to independently book a plane ticket and a hotel room, and buy goods in a store without a cashier. There are many more tasks, and besides this I want to be with family, friends and take up hobbies.

Multitasking is a myth

However, having a large task list and being able to multi-task is not as good as it seems. A person cannot multitask. We take multitasking to be the ability to quickly switch from one task to another. And each such switch requires considerable resources, increases stress and increases anxiety. Therefore, the less we switch and are distracted by extraneous things, the better.

But what if there are a lot of tasks and you need to somehow cope with it? How to avoid going crazy with a huge list of tasks and be effective? Here are some tips.

Work in cycles

Business requires constant switching between tasks. If you have not yet learned to delegate and do everything on your own - from calling the water delivery person to an interview, then by the evening you are probably squeezed like lemon. To avoid unnecessary stress, work in cycles with a break in between.

The simplest technique for working in cycles is the Pomodoro technique. You concentrate as much as possible for some time at work and then be sure to take a short break. For example, 45 minutes of work and 15 minutes of rest. This operating principle is effective for working with both a large number of tasks and one large task.

Change your concentration mode

Our brain operates in two attention modes: concentration mode and wandering mode. Concentration mode (central-executive mode) turns on when we are completely immersed in work. We pay maximum attention to our work. In this mode, we work productively, but intensely. When working at such speeds for a long time, we gradually get tired and our efficiency decreases.

To work productively for a long time, you need to periodically switch from the first to the second mode - the mind-wandering mode. We are in this mode when we read literature, articles, walk, admire art, meditate. The “wandering” mode allows you to “reboot” your brain and relax. Therefore, breaks are useful for improving work efficiency.

Make important decisions in the morning

It is better to make all important decisions in the morning, when your decision-making resource has not yet been exhausted. Oddly enough, we can actually make a limited number of decisions per day. There is a certain threshold, and it makes no difference whether the choice we face is difficult or easy.

In one experiment, a group of people were asked to participate in a survey. Before the survey, they were specifically asked simple questions like: how should you arrange the paper? Would you like a blue or black pen? What will you drink: tea or coffee? With sugar or without sugar? With milk or lemon?

That is, they were forced to make decisions. And then they handed out survey sheets with questions on important philosophical problems. People struggled because they were already feeling tired. The decision-making resource has been spent.

Therefore, it is better to solve all important issues in the morning, while your head is fresh and you have not had time to spend all the resources.

Free your head

Don’t keep everything in your head, use brain “extenders” - calendars, diaries, lists, notepads, applications.

Think of your concentration as the RAM on your computer. The more programs you have open on your computer at the same time, the slower it will work. If you try to keep something in your head instead of offloading it to another medium, then you take up the amount of memory you need. The more such information, the more difficult it is to concentrate on the current matter.

Live "in the moment"

How often do you, while at work, think about household chores and dinner, and at home think about work? This happens all the time. During breakfast, people hold a fork in one hand and a phone in the other. They walk down the street with gloomy, concentrated faces, intensely thinking about something. We have stopped enjoying the present moment.

The Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh teaches how to live here and now in his book “Peace in Every Step.” If you want to learn to live in the moment, then be sure to read this book.

Society is making more and more demands. Nobody is anymore interested in a hard worker who does one thing at a time. No, he must be able to do both, and at once.

And more and more often we are faced with the concept of multitasking. What is multitasking? Multitasking is the ability to perform several processes simultaneously. This concept applies to programming, production, and human activity. In order not to be scattered, let’s leave technical questions to the relevant specialists and talk about what multitasking is for a person.

Multitasking is increasingly penetrating our lives and becoming an integral part of our activities, recreation, everyday life, and entertainment. Perhaps this happens because we revolve in a rapid flow of information and opportunities, and we want to try everything, and we want to do everything in time. We have turned into big children, and children, as you know, like to start different things and give up halfway through.

Therefore, we can simultaneously answer letters in the mail, chat on social media, listen to music, paint our nails (cut our beard) and argue with our mother (wife, husband) through the wall. Now Julius Caesar has nothing to be proud of, even modern children have surpassed him - we do everything at once. We are constantly busy with something, but we just can’t reach the finish line; we have dozens of started and unfinished tasks. Dealing with three projects at once, reading five books at the same time, cooking soup, washing dishes and vacuuming - this is our multitasking.

It is not something to be strived for as a useful system of work. On the contrary, now this is a property inherent in almost every person. And we must learn to curb it.

Let me tell you a secret: researchers claim that multitasking for a person does not mean performing several tasks simultaneously, but rather quickly switching from one to another and back again. There are very few truly multitasking people.

Why do we love multitasking so much? Yes, we really love it because the brain likes the feeling of being constantly busy, which makes us feel more fulfilled and happy. The fact that half of the energy is spent switching from one task to another is not taken into account.

Moreover, when switching between tasks, a large dose of the happiness hormone is released into our body. This is why we are so attracted by the flashing SMS notification or the desire to feel nostalgic over the old trash found during cleaning.

But the problem is that at the same time the brain “injects” cortisol, the stress hormone. And it turns out that when we multitask, we are both happy and stressed.

But does this mean that multitasking has a negative impact on our lives and work? To find out, let's look at all aspects of this phenomenon.

Pros and cons of multitasking

• When multitasking, a person is prone to superficial processing of information, therefore he does not have a sufficient knowledge base and is poorly informed in the issues being studied.
• The “multi-tool operator” subconsciously transfers data from one task to another, and therefore makes mistakes. With insufficient concentration, attention is scattered.
• Incorrectly structured multitasking tires – and a tired person works worse.
• As already mentioned, multitasking is fraught with a bunch of started and unfinished tasks.

• If you plan your work properly, multitasking really helps you solve several problems at the same time.
• It trains the brain and develops concentration.
• People who are able to work effectively in multitasking conditions are able to react quickly in force majeure circumstances and delve into the key concepts of the problem with lightning speed. In some situations, this property is much more important than the ability to meticulously study a question, disassemble it “piece by piece” and only then make a decision. Sometimes it may be too late.

Multitasking at work: execution cannot be pardoned?

What should we do with the notorious multitasking - try to get rid of it and learn to do everything in order or somehow systematize it so that it does more good than harm? Of course, the second one.

By the way, working in multitasking conditions brings good results in the field of business, management, pedagogy, tourism and other niches where you need to solve a bunch of issues immediately as they arise. The main thing here is to learn how to use it correctly, so that it doesn’t turn out like in that joke about the Chukchi who harnessed deer to a Lada. In order for multitasking to be a tool and not ballast, you need to set a few important rules for yourself.

How to multitask effectively?

Multitasking is a complex and capricious property of our psyche. It is like an unbroken horse. If we don’t know how to control it, it saddles us and exhausts us, squeezes out all our juices.

Multitasking should not be confused with disorganization. Many who consider themselves great “multitaskers” simply do not know how to organize their own time.

True multitasking is the ability to concentrate on only one thing for a certain time, switching to another at a strictly established moment and completely immersing yourself in the new work.

Develop discipline and concentration - and then multitasking will not turn into a quagmire, irrevocably sucking in all the time and energy of its owner.

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Forget about invisibility or the ability to fly. The only superpower we dream of today is doing several different things at the same time. However, unlike any other superpower, the ability to multitask is often found as a basic requirement for employment.

Some of you can probably remember sitting in front of multi-touch computers or tablets, posting statuses on Twitter, and at the same time devouring steak and cold orange juice. Others read on Kindle, pointing at their smartphone and looking at the TV in the corner with two lines of rolling subtitles. We don’t think twice about sending a colleague an email asking for coffee, because we’re sure he’ll read the email within a few minutes.

Simply put, this is how the modern world works. is an ability like reading or adding numbers, so fundamental that it is taken for granted. Doing one thing at a time is for losers. Let us remember how Lyndon Johnson spoke of Gerald Ford: “Ford is a good guy, but he can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.”

The rise of multitasking is driven by technological developments as well as social changes. Husbands and wives are no longer divided into breadwinners and housewives - now everyone must be both. Work and hobbies can be inseparable from each other. Your friends can contact you even if you are at work by sending you an email at 10 am. And your boss might call you on your cell phone at 10 p.m. You can shop while sitting at your desk and stay in control of work issues while standing in line at the supermarket.

This is a good change in many ways. How wonderful it is to be able to do important things and not waste time. How delightful is the diversity in all its manifestations! You no longer have to live in a monotonous Taylorist world where you had to completely focus on the same type of tasks until you went crazy.

Yet we are beginning to understand that the benefits of a multitasking life are not so clear-cut. We feel overwhelmed with things that may need to be done at any moment. We feel like we could be called at any time.

We are worried about the terrible appetite of our children who do everything at once: scrolling through homework, texting on WhatsApp, listening to music and watching Game of Thrones.

According to a recent study by Sabrina Pabilonia of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, students spend more than half of their homework time listening to music or watching TV—in other words, multitasking. And this trend is only gaining momentum. Maybe they really manage to process all the incoming information? They think this way, even though research suggests otherwise.

Now we can see a backlash against multitasking - a kind of self-help campaign. A living example is a crowdfunding project on Kickstarter in December 2014. For $499—more than a feature-rich laptop—you could buy the Hemingwrite, a computer with a good keyboard, a small E-Ink screen, and automatic sending of typed text to cloud storage. You can't send email with Hemingwrite. With Hemingwrite you can't watch YouTube, you can't read the news. You can only print. The Hemingwrite campaign raised more than $3 million.

The example of Hemingwrite (after rebranding the company is called Freewrite) demonstrates that you can cope with multitasking through self-restraint

Programs like Freedom or Self-Control are appearing, and you can install them in your browser to disable it for a certain time. The Villa Stéphanie, a hotel in Baden-Baden, offers an additional service in its suites: a small silver switch next to the bed with which you can activate a wireless network blocker, so as not to be tempted by the Internet.

The line between opponents has been drawn. On the one hand, there's today's workplace culture, which requires you to be ready to be interrupted at any time. On the other are the proponents of single-tasking, who insist that multitasking is a fallacy and that what matters most is what matters most. Which one is right?

The price of behavior

There is enough evidence to support the fact that we should focus on one thing at a time. Let's look at a study by David Strayer, a psychologist at the University of Utah. In 2006, Strayer and his colleagues used a high-fidelity driving simulator to compare the performance of drivers who text while driving with those of drivers with a high blood alcohol level (BAC). Talkative drivers' driving styles were not aggressive or risky like those of drunk drivers, but they were dangerous in other ways. Drivers with phones were much slower to react to events outside the car and did not notice signs around them. Strayer's disappointing conclusion was that driving while using a cell phone is just as dangerous as driving while intoxicated.

There was another important finding in this study: it doesn't matter whether the driver is talking while holding the phone in his hand or on speakerphone. Problems caused by talking while driving are not due to a lack of hands. And because of the lack of mental resources.

However, this discovery did not make much of an impression on public opinion or legislators. In the UK, for example, it is illegal to use a phone with your hands while driving, but talking on a hands-free phone is completely legal. We are happy to admit that we have only two hands, but we refuse to admit that we have only one brain.

In another study, Strayer showed that we also misjudge our own multitasking abilities. Study participants who claimed to be able to multitask for long periods of time performed poorly on tests of multitasking ability. They systematically overestimated their capabilities and were less able to control their emotions. In other words, wanting to multitask is a clear sign that you probably shouldn't be doing it.

We may not immediately realize that multitasking is hindering us. The first time I used Twitter was to comment on a public event during a televised government debate in 2010. I liked the feeling of live communication: I could view candidates’ arguments and post responses, write my own 140-character thoughtful sayings and watch them being shared. I felt completely involved in what was happening. It was only at the end of the debate that I realized, to my great surprise, that I could not remember absolutely anything that Brown, Cameron and Clegg had said.

A study conducted at the University of California confirms that my experience is not unique. Three psychologists, Karin Foerde, Barbara Knowlton, and Russell Poldrack, showed students a series of cards with symbols on them, and then asked them to make a prediction if they understood the pattern. Some of these predictions were made in a multitasking environment, where students also had to listen to a recording of low and high tones and calculate the highest one. You might think that making a forecast and at the same time trying to focus on sounds is too much work. Not really. Students were sufficiently trained to recognize patterns with or without audio cues.

But here's the catch: When the researchers asked more general questions about the patterns after completing the task, the full cost of multitasking behavior became clear. Students struggled to answer questions about the predictions they made in a multitasking environment. They completed both tasks successfully, but did not learn anything that they could apply in another context.

This is a disappointing discovery. When we send email on time, we don't do it carefully. According to psychologists, the feeling of understanding may be an illusion, and only then you discover that you actually didn’t remember a lot or cannot apply your knowledge flexibly. This means that multitasking makes us more forgetful - another trait that makes us a bit like drunks.

The first "multitaskers"

In 1958, young psychologist Bernice Eiduson began a long-term research project. As it turned out, it was so long-term that she did not live to see its completion. Eiduson studied the work practices of forty scientists, mostly men. She periodically, every few years, interviewed them and conducted psychological tests. Some scientists' careers ended in failure, while others achieved serious success. Four received the Nobel Prize, and two more were considered serious contenders for it. Several people were invited to join the National Academy of Sciences.

After Eiduson's death, her colleagues published an analysis of Bernice's work. In particular, Robert Root-Bernstein, Maurine Bernstein and Helen Garnier wanted to determine what determines a long, productive career as a scientist, to find the recipe for genius and longevity.

There was no secret in the interviews and psychological tests. But by looking at the early publications of these scientists, their first 100 scientific papers, the researchers discovered one pattern: leading scientists constantly changed the direction of their work.

In the first 100 papers, the most productive scientists managed to cover five different research areas and changed from one topic to another about 43 times. They published, changed the topic, published again and changed the topic again. Since the research takes a long time, sometimes their topics overlapped. So what is the secret to a long and highly productive career as a scientist? In multitasking.

Charles Darwin successfully coped with various activities. He began writing his notes on the mutation of species two decades before the publication of On the Origin of Species. He began writing “A Biographical Sketch of a Child” immediately after the birth of his son William, and published it only when William was 37 years old. At the same time, Darwin worked on climbing and insectivorous plants for almost 20 years. He published a book about earthworms in 1881, shortly before his death. Darwin worked on it for 44 years. When psychologists Howard Gruber and Sara Davis studied the methods of Darwin and other famous scientists, they concluded that such overlapping studies were common.

Another group of psychologists, led by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, interviewed nearly 100 exceptionally creative people, from jazz pianist Oscar Peterson and writer Stephen Jay Gould to two-time Nobel laureate physicist John Bardeen. . Csikszentmihalyi is known for developing the blissful state of being so absorbed in one's goal that one does not notice the passage of time and leaves all distractions outside. Moreover, each of Csikszentmihalyi’s respondents practiced working on several projects at the same time.

Just internet addiction?

If the term "multitasking" can be applied to both Darwin and a teenager with a habit of constantly checking Instagram, it's worth considering a more precise definition of this phenomenon. There are at least four types of activities that we can refer to when we talk about multitasking.

1. Innate multitasking

For example, when you can sing and play the piano at the same time. Innate multitasking is possible, but at least one of the tasks must be performed automatically, without additional thought.

2. Switch between tasks

Now let's talk about the situation when you are making a presentation for your boss, at the same time answering his calls and keeping one eye on him in case he wants to bother you there. It can't be called multitasking in the same sense. The term “quick task switching” is more appropriate here because your attention is split between the presentation, the phone, and your inbox. Much of what we call multitasking is actually rapidly switching between tasks.

3. Distracted attention

Switching between tasks is often confused with a third activity - the secret hobby of scrolling through an endless feed of gossip about the stars and updates on social networks in between. There's a big difference between a person who stopped halfway through an article to make a few notes on a future project and then came back to it, and a person who read halfway through an article and then went to look at pictures of girls in bikinis. “What we call multitasking is often trivial,” says psychologist Shelley Carson, author of Your Creative Brain. “This is a compulsive action, not a manifestation of multitasking.”

4. Managing multiple projects

And the last type of multitasking is when you don’t need to achieve a goal, but simply do a lot of things. The car needs to be taken to a service center. My teeth hurt. The husband cannot pick up the children from school today. I need to prepare for an important meeting next week, and also pay taxes. Just because there are a lot of things to do doesn't mean you need to do them all at once. It's just life.

Fight for attention

All four actions: innate multitasking, switching between tasks, distracted attention and managing multiple projects - are labeled as “multitasking”. This is not due to ordinary linguistic confusion; they are similar in another respect. In particular, the highly productive practice of managing several disparate projects at the same time can lead to a completely unproductive habit of quickly switching between tasks.

To understand why this happens, consider a story that happened in a restaurant near the University of Berlin in the 1920s - psychologists like to tell it. When a large group of academics arrived at the restaurant, the waiter came to take their order, nodding calmly each time they added a new dish or drink to the overall complex order. He didn't write anything down, but when he returned with the food, everyone was convinced that his memory was impeccable. When leaving, the academicians were still discussing his extraordinary skill. But one of them returned for some forgotten item, and the waiter did not remember him. How did it happen that the waiter suddenly became so absent-minded? “Very simple,” he replied. “When the order is paid, I forget it.”

One of the members of the Berlin School was the young experimental psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik. In one experiment, she demonstrated that people remember unfinished tasks better. This phenomenon is called "": when we interrupt an action without completing it, we cannot get it out of our heads. Our subconscious mind keeps a reminder that a task requires attention.

The Zeigarnik effect may explain the connection between having multiple responsibilities and overusing rapid task switching. We run from task to task because we can't forget about all the things we haven't done yet. We run from task to task because we are trying to drown out our obsessive inner voice.

Now we talked a lot about protecting attention and single-tasking. But in the past, a lot was said in defense of calligraphic handwriting or insisted that everyone needs a butler. The world is moving forward. There's something appealing about Hemingwrite and a room without internet in a hotel, but there's also something impractical.

It's not true that Facebook is the only thing stopping you from achieving literary fame. And in most offices, Hemingwrite is not the best tool for getting promoted. You're not Ernest Hemingway and you can't just ignore inboxes from your colleagues.

Single-tasking can only survive if it makes compromises with today's multitasking world.

Loops and Lists

The word "multitasking" wasn't used to describe people until the 1990s; for half a century it was exclusively used to describe computers. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term "multitasking" first appeared in print in Datamation magazine in 1966 to describe a computer capable of performing several different tasks simultaneously.

Just like people, computers usually create the illusion of multitasking, but in reality they simply switch between tasks very quickly. Only computers switch faster; they don’t need 20 minutes to get back on track after a break.

In addition, the computer will not worry about what is not done. As long as the queue passes and the text is sent to the printer, he will not feel any guilt for the fact that the mouse froze for the last 16 milliseconds. Time will come to the mouse. Being a computer means never experiencing the Zeigarnik effect.

How can we maintain the feeling that everything is under control if we feel a constant feeling of guilt for what we didn’t do?

Every time you tell someone, “I'll get back to this,” you start a cycle in your brain. And this cycle will continue to spin there until you put a substitute into the system that you can trust.

David Allen

Modern life encourages us to discover more and more new cycles. We don't necessarily have a lot of work to do, but we do have a lot of work to do that we need to be ready to do at a moment's notice. Tasks flow inexorably into one another. No matter what we do, we can't help but feel like we should be doing something else. And this requires significant mental effort.

The principle outlined in is simple: close open loops. The details are more complicated, but the principle itself is comprehensive. After every thing you do for yourself or someone else, write down what you plan to do next. Reviewing your next actions list frequently will help ensure you're not overlooking anything.

Allen's method has many followers. Experience shows that many people find it extremely useful, including myself (details below). Yet it was only recently that psychologists EJ Masicampo and Roy Baumeister found an explanation for why people feel better using David Allen's system. In fact, it is not at all necessary to complete the task to get rid of the Zeigarnik effect. A specific plan will help with this. Write down the next action and you will notice that the annoying inner voice fades away. You transfer your worries onto a piece of paper.

Boundaries of creativity

It's probably a wise decision to leave fast task switching to computers. But even frantically rushing between Facebook, email and documents can provide certain benefits.

Psychologist Shelley Carson and her student Justin Moore recently conducted an experiment. They tested students' ability to quickly switch between tasks. Each subject was given two tasks: solving anagrams and reading articles from scientific journals. The assignments had to be completed on a computer. Half of the subjects completed the tasks sequentially: first they solved anagrams, and then read the article. For the other half of the experimental group, the tasks on the screen changed every two and a half minutes - from anagrams to an article and back, and so on several times.

It is not surprising that due to the constant switching of tasks, the subjects in the second group thought more slowly. They solved fewer anagrams and were less aware of the content of what they read because they switched attention from one to another every 150 seconds.

But when interpreting the results, the advantages of such multitasking were revealed. Subjects who performed the switching task were more More specifically, their test scores were characterized by lateral thinking, especially in open-ended questions. They might, for example, be asked to come up with as many uses for a rolling pin as possible, or to list the consequences of what would happen to the world if people had three hands instead of two. Forced “multitaskers” gave more varied answers, and their thoughts were more original.

“Task switching seems to trigger creativity in people,” says Carson, an associate professor at Harvard. The results of her collaboration with Moore have not yet been published, but one could already argue that such tasks are unlikely to be suitable for measuring creativity. Carson responds that laboratory research has found a correlation between divergent thinking and creative activity in a broad sense, be it writing a novel, producing a professional stage show, or creating a painting. Those who are convinced that great work can only be done through superhuman concentration should reflect on this discovery.

Carson and her colleagues found a correlation between significant achievements in the creative field and the manifestation of such a psychological phenomenon as low ability of latent inhibition. Latent inhibition is a filter that all mammals have that allows them to unconsciously tune out irrelevant stimuli. It would be unbearable to hear every conversation in the office, the hum of the air conditioner, while at the same time noticing every person who passes by the office window. Hidden inhibition saves us from this. This subconscious filter allows us to walk through the world without reacting to all external stimuli.

Yet people whose filters are a little more permeable are more likely to be creative. Think about it, single-taskers: While you're trying too hard to focus on one thing, people who can't resist the noise of the world are now taking their manuscripts to the publishing house.

“You're bringing more information into your cognitive space, and it can be either conscious or unconscious,” says Carson. Two other psychologists, Holly White and Priti Shah, have found a similar pattern in the behavior of people with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

It would be wrong to romanticize severe illnesses such as ADHD. All studies were conducted among university students, that is, people who have already demonstrated their ability to perceive information. Although the conditions of White and Shah's experiment were non-trivial: its participants had to have a clinical diagnosis of ADHD. This means that the attention deficit bothered the students so much that they were forced to seek professional help.

It's an amazing discovery: switching between tasks makes us more creative. It's even more amazing to realize that in a time when we all live under the threat of constant distraction, people who are prone to distraction can thrive creatively.

Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised. "By switching between tasks, you can grease the rails on which thought runs," says John Kounios, a professor of psychology at Drexel University.

Kounios, co-author of the book Eureka Factor, suggests that there are at least two psychological mechanisms that could potentially trigger creativity when switching between tasks. One is that a new challenge helps us forget bad ideas. When solving a creative problem, it's easier to get stuck because we think about it, but at the same time we just can't stop thinking about it. When you do something new, fundamentally different, the forgetting reaction is activated, which allows us to free ourselves and find the right solution.

The second mechanism is flexible assimilation. When a new task prompts us to think about solving the old one. A famous example is Archimedes and his “Eureka!”

As the story goes, Archimedes' task was to determine whether the crown was truly made of pure gold (without impurities) without destroying the jewelry. The solution turned out to be this: see if the golden crown would displace the same volume of water from the vessel as a gold bar of the same mass. This solution came to Archimedes's mind when he was taking a bath and thinking about changes in the water level. Taking a bath and looking for a solution to a problem isn't multitasking?

6 Ways to Become a Multitasking Genius

1. Be careful

“The ideal situation for multitasking is when you can focus when you need it,” writes psychologist Shelley Carson. Tom Chatfield, author of Live This Book, recommends creating two lists: one for things that are better done online, and one for things that are better done offline. Connecting and disconnecting from the Internet should be a conscious action.

2. Write it down

The main idea behind David Allen's Get Things Done is to turn every vague thought and guilt into action. Therefore, write down all your tasks regularly and review them constantly. The goal is to not worry about the things you are doing and the things you decide not to do right now, but at the same time to be confident that nothing will go to waste.

3. Tame your smartphone

A smartphone is a great but annoying assistant. Turn off unnecessary alerts: Most people don't need to know about new tweets or incoming emails. Set up a storage system in your email. For example, when it is more convenient to respond to a message using the keyboard (you need to write 50 words or more), you move the message to a special folder in which it is stored until you get to your computer.

4. Focus on short tasks

A technique suggested by Francesco Chirillo is to break a large task into several 25-minute sets (called pomodoros), with a short break in between. Productivity guru Merlin Mann recommends the email dash method of reviewing your email or to-do list for a few minutes every hour. These techniques help you focus while still allowing you to switch between projects several times a day.

5. Procrastinate to win.

If you are working on several interesting projects at the same time, you can put one aside and work on another. This is exactly how Charles Darwin worked. Change is just as good as rest, and as psychologist John Kounios explains, switching between tasks in this way helps spark new ideas.

6. Work in different areas

“Creative ideas come to people who work in different fields or have several different projects,” says author and psychologist Keith Sawyer. By the way, Sawyer is also a jazz pianist and a former management consultant and game designer at Atari. Good ideas often come when your mind makes unexpected connections between different areas.

Tim Harford's To Do List

Write everything down. I use Google Calendar for appointments and a digital to-do list called Remember The Milk, as well as a dedicated daily to-do list on paper. The details don't matter. The principle is not to keep everything in your head.

The list should be as complete as possible. There are currently 151 items on my list. (No, I didn’t memorize this number, I recalculated.)

Update the list. The system works and relieves anxiety if you trust that your calendar and task list will remind you of what you need to do. I spend 20 minutes a week going through my list, checking off deadlines, making sure I don't have any important items missing from my list. Revising the list is very important. The more you trust it, the more often you use it. The more you use it, the more you trust it.

A list with additional context is just as good as a topical list. Naturally, it's easier to keep a list about a specific topic or project, such as a to-do list for redecorating a guest room or a list of plans for the next year. Things to do before departure; things to buy in the store; ideas to talk about with your boss when you meet.

Be specific about the next action. If you're just jotting down vague reminders, your to-do list will continue to cause anxiety. Before you write down a poorly worded problem, think for 15 seconds about what exactly it is.

Multitasking is everyone's constant companion HR specialists. Even if the HR manager’s functionality involves only recruiting personnel, multitasking will be present in any case. If a person is unable to work in the mode multitasking, he will try to act one by one, setting priorities and trying to complete all the necessary functionality within a certain time. But the thing is that at work HR specialist There is a constant human factor and it will most likely not be possible to work according to a pre-planned scenario. In order to fit what is planned into the framework of the working day, it is important to be able to work in a multitasking. Let's look at the basic rules that will help you successfully deal with this problem.

Planning your working day

I will give an example of prioritization for HR specialist, who works at the production site as a single person.

1. Filling of “warehouse manager” and “shift supervisor” vacancies.
2. Mass recruitment of personnel (production workers).
3. Personnel records management (hiring, dismissal, transfer of employees).
4. Development of local regulations, regulations and job descriptions.
5. Preparation of reports for management.
6. Development of an assessment program for line personnel.
7. Development of training materials for line personnel.
8. Development of a motivation system for production employees.
9. Notification of the Federal Migration Service on the admission of foreign workers.
10. Carrying out adaptation activities for newcomers.

In order to set priorities correctly, it is necessary to set goals to achieve which the employee’s tasks are aimed. The more strongly goals influence business results, the more priority this or that task becomes. In addition to setting goals, it is important to assess the risks that the organization faces if a particular task is not completed. It is these two factors that are decisive when setting priorities.

Prioritizing tasks based on goals and risks

Task	Target	Risks	Priority	Task status
Closing of vacancies “Warehouse manager” and “Shift supervisor”	Uninterrupted operation of the business system	Malfunction business development, financial losses	High	Urgent
Mass recruitment (production workers)	Efficient production process	Malfunction business development, financial losses	High	Urgent
Personnel records management (hiring, dismissal, transfer of employees)	Personnel accounting, compliance with labor laws	Unsystematized personnel records, fines in case of inspections for non-compliance with labor laws	Average	Current
Development of local regulations, regulations and job descriptions	Regulation of processes, compliance with labor laws	Unregulated processes, fines in case of inspections for non-compliance with labor laws	Average	Current
Reporting for management	Providing measurable performance indicators	There are no significant risks	Low	Current
Development of an assessment program for line personnel	Identification of incompetent employees, formation of an internal personnel reserve	Poor quality of work by incompetent personnel	High	Urgent
Development of training materials for line personnel	Increasing the competence and, as a result, the quality of work of employees	Poor quality of work of untrained personnel	High	Current
Development of a motivation system for production employees	Increasing the interest and, as a result, the quality of work of employees	Low quality of work of unmotivated personnel	High	Urgent
Notification of the Federal Migration Service on the admission of foreign workers	Legal Compliance	Fines for non-compliance with migration laws	High	Urgent
Carrying out adaptation activities for newcomers	Improving internal corporate communications and the quality of employee work	There may be an increase in turnover and a deterioration in the quality of work of the new employee. There are no significant risks	Average	Current

As we can see, there are no urgent tasks in the table; urgent and current tasks are distributed equally. When planning your day, it is important to devote the maximum amount of time to solving urgent problems, while leaving a small margin of time to solve current problems.

Any task must be divided into processes. Even if the task is global and requires a significant amount of time, it will be much easier to implement it.

Learning to switch

The ability to switch is necessary to maintain concentration, that is, focus on the task and interest in the work being performed. It is monotonous actions that reduce the stability of attention. When switching from one task to another, you need to consider the following points:

• Contrast of process dynamics.
• Time factor.

The process you switch to must differ in dynamics from the main process: this is the key rule of constructive work. For example, like HR Director you are busy developing regulations for which you have allocated a certain amount of time, say two hours. Halfway through the process, you can switch to another, more lively task, such as conducting telephone interviews with candidates. It is also advisable to switch to an activity that is easier and more interesting for you: it is psychologically easier, and switching, in addition to having a constructive effect on your attention, will be perceived as rest and relief for the brain.

Regarding the time factor, it should be noted that the switch should be limited in time, that is, the main activity from which you switched to a secondary one should remain so. Let’s say your main task today is to monitor the labor market based on wage levels. You have set a time limit for yourself to complete this functionality: three hours. Every hour, switch to another, secondary task, allocating 15-20 minutes to complete it. Thus, it will take you four hours to complete the main task and several secondary tasks, instead of the three that you budgeted for the main task. But your productivity will increase significantly and, in addition to a large block of analytical work, you will be able to perform a number of functional responsibilities without losing the quality of your work.

Performing different actions at the same time

Of course, in reality, doing several things at the same time is unrealistic: in any case, you do one thing, instantly switching to another. But to perform tasks that are insignificant in terms of labor costs, it is still possible to perform several actions simultaneously. For example, while talking on the phone, you can parse and sign documents, or, while communicating with a colleague, view email.

The main thing is that the processes that you carry out in parallel are more mechanical than tactical, and do not require significant mental effort from you. By daily developing your ability to do several things in parallel, you can significantly increase your productivity and optimize time spent during the working day.

Neutralizing time wasters

Time eaters, or chronophages, are a powerful negative factor that distracts a specialist and takes away his time resources. Let's look at typical time wasters and possible ways to deal with them.

• Social networks, entertainment content. The Internet in the work process should be used only for work. This is a non-negotiable rule. If we think more globally, social networks are, first of all, the exchange of information. Excess information leads to stress and nervous overload. At work, you already receive a lot of information. And if you add to it the stream of endless online garbage that we consume, you can simply forget about productivity. Make it a rule not to go on social media at work. Do this on the way home, in the evening, if you cannot do without social networks.
• Personal calls. Communication with friends and family by phone during the workday is best kept to a minimum. Firstly, you waste precious working time on them. Secondly, personal conversations are a powerful distraction, after which it is difficult for you to get ready for work: you continue to think about your personal affairs and problems that need to be solved. Thirdly, I’ll tell you a secret, such conversations very irritate management. Know how to work while at work: personal calls and SMS are best left for the lunch break, when you can calmly discuss everything that concerns your personal life.
• Chronophagous people. There are people who do not work themselves and do not give to others. They will come, look into your eyes and begin to spread their thoughts throughout the tree, discussing trivial things for hours. Don't encourage their talkativeness. Know how to say no and end the conversation tactfully. Otherwise, such communication may become regular. If you see that a colleague is abusing your hospitality, end this dialogue, or rather, monologue, by any means available. Start writing an email. Say a phrase to end the conversation: “I heard you,” “I understood you,” “Thank you, everything is clear.” Refer to urgent matters.

Give yourself timely rest

Unfortunately, today regular rest breaks have become very rare. We eat, drink, listen to music without looking up from the computer monitor. Rest without interruption from work is not rest, but the satisfaction of physiological needs. I once read in a scientific journal that if a person suffers from insomnia, there is no need to worry: the main thing is to lie in bed, the body will perceive this as sleep. It’s the same at work: if we sit in front of a computer, even a delicious lunch will not be perceived as rest: our poor body will think that work continues.

Working without breaks is a powerful stress factor. You need to go outside at least every two hours, drink tea, and turn off the monitor screen. Even ten minutes of rest can have a beneficial effect on an employee, especially if he is working under time pressure.

Disconnecting from work after the end of the working day

Just like you turn off your computer at the end of the working day, it is important to be able to disconnect your own brain from the work process. Without switching off, you don’t rest, constantly scrolling through work issues in your head that need to be resolved.

How to forget about work issues until the start of the next working day? First, don't train your colleagues and managers to disturb you on weekends and in the evenings. Secondly, leave unresolved matters at work. Write down all your tasks and leave them on your desk. This way, you don't have to keep everything you have to do in your head. One last thing: don't take your work home. If there is an urgent need to complete some tasks, it is better to come to the office on a day off than to let work into your personal space. Know how to separate work from your personal life; harmony is an important component of any personality, even if that person is an incorrigible workaholic and an ambitious careerist.