Comments on: Stop Multitasking Like a Chump

By: Bruce

Bruce — Sat, 22 May 2010 00:18:11 +0000

Here via Jen G.

This is really a great perspective, I appreciate her sharing and your posting it. Gives me a lot of food for thought. I'll try to focus on just one entree at a time, though.

By: Mark Welch

Mark Welch — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:23:34 +0000

I recently followed a very simple suggestion: reduce the frequency of checking emails. I had my email software set to download new emails every 7 minutes, and so every 7 minutes my computer would alert me that there was new email, which took me "off task."

Since I'm not currently managing any client campaigns, I don't need such frequent interruptions -- so I changed the setting to check every 35 minutes. That reduces the number of interruptions from 68 per eight-hour workday to only 14. If I don't experience any unexpected problems, I'll probably switch to check email every 60 or 90 minutes.

Of course, I can manually trigger an email check, if I'm expecting something specific.

I've definitely been having some issues regarding multi-tasking -- I'm not tolerating interruptions as well as I once did, perhaps due to aging or maybe just from stress. The result has been that when I am interrupted, I sometimes forget what I was doing before the interruption, and at times I've even found myself repeating the same work twice!

By: Fabian Amoureuse

Fabian Amoureuse — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:10:30 +0000

Some of my co-workers are listening to music while working. Cant understand them , its way too distracting. Doing 2 things in the same time its a bit impossible.

By: Roxy Cross

Roxy Cross — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:21:15 +0000

When I worked in an office with distracting co-workers I used to put my Ipod headset on and not play anything! Others thought I was busy and they were right! Now I listen to Maximum Focus and other CD’s from ABT, Advanced Brain Technology, an Ogden company. Their CD’s really do what they say! De-Stress, Motivation and more. http://www.advancedbrain.com/

By: Kristy Bolsinger

Kristy Bolsinger — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 22:15:24 +0000

Just to add on to the music convo… I got really good at this in grad school. If music can be distracting to you (I tend to sing along if I know the words for example) try music without words, or at least those in English. I found that bhangra is great. It’s high energy, but I can’t understand a word so it doesn’t distract me. Also, white noise is great. After about 30 seconds you don’t hear it and it completely drowns out all other sounds. There are different tonalities to it so it’s pretty easy to find a version of white noise that works best for you.

By: Rick Galan

Rick Galan — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:12:19 +0000

@Kristy – That’s a great tip! If you find that you work well in a scheduled, structured environment, there is no reason you can set that structure yourself. Set yourself some personal time after long windows of focus, so you have something to work towards. Nice!

@B. – Glad my Sister-in-law is directing people to my blog, thanks for stopping by!

@Kevin – I think a lot of people work well with music happening in the background. I know it doesn’t slow me down – as long as I’m devoting too much attention to it. The trick is to keep your focus on one thing at a time, and if you can listen to music and still do that, all the better. :) That’s a good tip about the headphones indicating that you are working. Reminds me of a post on Lifehacker on the subject – you don’t even need to have music going, but having the headphones in thins out the interruptions. :) http://lifehacker.com/5264969/use-unplugged-earphones-to-avoid-pesky-interruptions

By: Kevin Doory

Kevin Doory — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 19:37:10 +0000

The first point about being "ok with distraction" has one edit from me. Personal experience is that listening to music (via headphones) actually helps focus my attention. In a situation where you may not have an office or even a closed cube, the headphones allow coworkers to see your not open to random conversation. (I have notice it tends to work even if your not listening to anything)

The other points are good tips as well. I find that leaving ones blackberry or iphone at their desk during meetings also tends to help keep focus.

By: b.

b. — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:26:04 +0000

Here via Jen G.

This is really a great perspective, I appreciate her sharing and your posting it. Gives me a lot of food for thought. I'll try to focus on just one entree at a time, though.

By: Kristy Bolsinger

Kristy Bolsinger — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 17:56:55 +0000

That part about 10-30 minutes for recovery time post distraction scares me a little bit. Depending on the task at hand and the distraction itself surely that amount of time varies. But definitely something that most of us don't consider when managing our time and distractions.

One thing that I do that really helps me out is to set a timeline. Some of these distractions are self-imposed out of curiosity. I 'want' to check Twitter to see what my friends are up to, or to see what's going on. If I need to get something done though having a self-imposed time line of say...30-60 minutes on the clock of pure focus, I find that I will stick to it. The deadline, although self-imposed, helps me give pure unadulterated attention to whatever I'm working on because I know I've given myself permission to geek out on Twitter (or whatever else I choose) at the end.