Price multitasking: how distractions affect productivity

Gloria MarkUniversity of California professor, engaged in the study of multitasking and how it affects the overall performance. Edition of Fast Company set the Gloria essential questions: whether it is necessary to do several tasks at once, and if not, why not.

- Why learn multi-tasking?

- I came to the US from Europe in the early 2000s and was shocked at how Americans are suitable to carry out the work. We live in an age of information and technology, and people seemed to put aim specifically to complicate your life.

- It's all about the revolution in communication? Instant messengers and internet as a condition for quick distraction?

- Breaks and interruptions in the work - it's not always a bad thing. It is bad when they cause stress, which grows throughout the day.

- How often distracted the average office worker?

- We have investigated this question to the nearest second. The average office worker is changing activity every 3 minutes 5 seconds.

- The matter is in the environment, or people?

- The man himself. Thanks to the smart phone on hand and a pile of entertainment on the Internet is not as difficult to distract from the work.

- whether the situation may be, which is helpful to be distracted?

- Yes, if the distraction associated with the same task. For example, you are working on an assignment A and you went Officer, giving you new information on this task. We got distracted, but you could benefit from it.

If the diversion of non-durable, it is not so bad. Imagine you are writing an article, you fit a colleague and said: "Hey, sign here." You sign on the machine and go back directly to the writing material - your productivity is unlikely to fall.

- In what situations distracted harmful?

- Almost always, if you are distracted from the job and switch to something else. You have to redirect the cognitive resources in a different direction, and after returning to the previous specification level of attention falls.

- How much time a person needs to get back to the task?

- 82% of respondents were returning to the job the same day. But there is bad news: it takes about 23 minutes and 15 seconds.

- What are the psychological problems associated with multi-tasking?

- We have found that those who engaged in several things at the same time, are more prone to stress. They also allow for more mistakes. But the interesting thing is that people who are often distracted, do the work faster. This is due to the fact that they know that they would be distracted, and compensate for this speed for the task.

- Does this mean that we are increasingly conceivable surface?

- I doubt that a man who changes the activity every 10 minutes, can think deeply. In this state, to achieve flow very difficult.

- How do you achieve productivity?

- I try to work at home. I go to university just because of organizational issues. Stay at home for the reason that here my work more comfortable and no distractions.

- Give advice to those who want to get rid of multitasking.

- Limit consumption of web content. Discipline yourself. I will confine myself sitting in the Internet up to two times a day: in the morning and evening. To check the address identifies four five-minute interval during the day.

- To be honest, how many times you check your emails during the interview?

- To be honest, a couple of times.