Multi-tasking is so pervasive in
organizations, and modern life in general, that we often don’t even think about
how damaging it is to productivity. Even worse many people claim to be great multi-taskers
whose productivity doesn’t suffer from switching between tasks. Unfortunately
all the research now being done fully supports, what even a simple exercise in
multi-tasking shows—it’s not only damaging to individual productivity its
devastating to organizational productivity. This is particularly true when the
work being done is only one activity in a large process or project—as most work
in organizations is.
Let’s define multi-tasking as
stopping one task, before it is either complete or has reached a logical
stopping point to go and do something else. This seemingly benign behavior
creates two significant problems. First it drains the efficiency of the
individual, because every time a task is set aside to go do something else the
person must spend time “getting back up to speed” when s/he returns to the
task. For most of what I call “knowledge work” this time can be considerable,
and in many instances this re-starting is also the source of errors or bugs as
things are missed. If a resource has to re-start a task several times, the
amount of time spent repeatedly preparing to do the work, can easily exceed the
time spent doing the task. Additionally, because people are always busy, either
working on a task or getting back up to speed on one, it appears that there is
no spare capacity anywhere, no efficiency to be gained. And many organizations
find themselves having to add staff, even though in reality there is
substantial hidden capacity, on top of the frustration and quality problems
stemming from multi-tasking.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, the
larger, and less well understood, issue is what it does to organizational
efficiency. When people are forced to multi-task, that task gets interrupted
and set aside, unfinished. But the clock on the work doesn’t stop, it just
keeps ticking; so that customer’s project, application, product, claim, or
whatever is not moving, but it’s eating up time, waiting for the person to come
back to finish it and move it to the next step in the process. Each interruption
delays the completion of the task and extends the lead time. Since
multi-tasking is likely to happen at each step of a process these delays
multiply quickly. Lead times and backlogs can grow quickly this way and
jeopardize the performance of the company, eroding customer satisfaction. It’s
not easy to precisely quantify how much lead times are inflated, but it’s
typically far more than one would think.
I typically use a simple game to
illustrate just how much multi-tasking impacts organizational performance. If
you like you can do it on your own in just a minute. I ask people to perform
three tasks: write all the numbers 1-20 in the first column, all the letters
A-T in the second, and then to draw twenty shapes in the third in the sequence
circle-square-triangle. I then give people two options for how to accomplish
the work. They can either complete it by working one task at a time, start to
finish, (all the letters first then the numbers and finally the shapes), or
they can multi-task doing one number, one letter, one shape and then repeating,
as in 1, A, Circle, 2, B, square, etc. Not surprisingly everyone wants to work
the tasks start to finish. At the same time they all readily agree that the
second way, multi-tasking, is more like how they have to work in their
organization. To play the game do the activities each way, timing each run
separately. When you’re ready, turn the page to continue the discussion.
I always find it best to do the
game in a group because you are assured to get a range of results, and a
measure of statistical validity. Having done this with several thousand people
over the years, the average times to complete the three projects is typically:
Multi-tasking: 85
seconds
Without Multi-tasking: 45 seconds
While it’s a simple game, it’s a very powerful illustration
of the impact of multi-tasking:
·
If you multi-task, it takes twice as long to
complete the tasks
·
If you don’t multi-task, you can do almost twice
as many projects in the same time
·
Everyone agrees its easier and probably produces
better quality without multi-tasking—so you’re not getting more by “working
harder”
In the multi-tasking iteration all three of the tasks finish
at virtually the same time, about 85 seconds. But when they work each task
start to finish, the projects don’t finish in a big wave, they finish one at a
time staggered about every 15 seconds (15-30-45 sec. for the three projects),
meaning that the first two projects finish dramatically earlier than with
multi-tasking. It’s not hard to extrapolate the results further if we imagine
that each of the three tasks was just one step in a larger process within an
organization. If we assume there were 10 sequential steps in the project, the
three projects would take 850 seconds to complete under multi-tasking mode, since
each step takes 85 seconds to complete the three projects. However, working
start to finish on each task the first task would be done and passed on after
just 15 seconds, the second after 30 and the last one after 45 seconds. Each
successive step, working the same way, would complete its stage in 15 seconds
and pass it on. So for a 10 step project the first project would finish after
just 150 seconds, with the second one at 165, and the third 15 seconds later
and 180 seconds. Compared to 850 seconds under multi-tasking, this translates
into a lead time reduction of more than 75%.
To be sure, reducing multi-tasking
is difficult, and eliminating it entirely is probably impossible. It requires a
shift in a number of common practices and some very common beliefs people have
about how to work and what it means to provide good service to customers and
colleagues. But what about the alternative? Continuing high levels of
multi-tasking reduces efficiency, produces lower output, extends customer lead
times, threatens quality, and makes everyone work harder for lower results.
Personally I don’t know many faster, more effective ways of improving
productivity, profits, and service than reducing multi-tasking.
Here’s a final thought to highlight
just how much multi-tasking is impacting your business and its productivity: Do
you or your colleagues ever come to work early, stay late, work from home, or
work on weekends? People tell me these are some of their most productive hours…when
they aren’t getting multi-tasked!
Links to Press on Multi-tasking:http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2012/03/the-magic-of-doing-one-thing-a.html#%21
http://business.time.com/2013/04/17/dont-multitask-your-brain-will-thank-you/
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/18/12-reasons-to-stop-multitasking-now/
http://psychology.about.com/od/cognitivepsychology/a/costs-of-multitasking.htm
Also check NPR, they did a couple of interesting segments on the radio this year and several years ago.
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