A mini-industry of books and courses has sprung up feeding our desire to operate more efficiently. A recent talk by psychologist Daniel Levitin pointed to research from brain science that highlighted four ways that our work routines sabotage productivity and offered four ways to increase our efficiency and effectiveness.
As a testament to his own productivity, Levitin has appointments at two universities on opposite coasts, is author of three best-selling books, built and sold two online music startups in his previous career and was the sound engineer for recordings by Santana and The Grateful Dead. Levitin’s talk took place at the School of Management at the University of Toronto, where I’ve taught for many years and was part of a tour to promote his new book The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.
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Trap one: The multi-tasking fallacy
We can’t multi task and do two things effectively at the same time. Pointing to research from MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller, Levitin showed there is no such thing as multitasking. Instead, our brains can only switch rapidly between sequential tasking. Here’s what Miller has to say about multitasking:
“Trying to concentrate on two tasks causes an overload of the brain’s processing capacity … trying to perform similar tasks such as writing an email and talking on the phone simultaneously leads to competition for the same part of the brain and the brain simply slows down.”
Levitin elaborated on this statement. Research shows that the person on the other end of the phone can tell if you’re reading an email or searching the web while talking. In addition, switching rapidly between tasks is exhausting. That’s why occupations that demand multitasking such as flight controllers or simultaneous translators have mandatory rest breaks each hour.
His conclusion: We should train ourselves to focus on one task at a time, even if that means turning away from the computer when talking on the phone.
Trap two: Focus on key tasks
Levitin said that in his experience, successful people are not smarter or harder working, but simply more disciplined and better at partitioning activity. He commented that of all the people he’s ever worked with, the musician Sting was the most focused and disciplined.
Levitin described working as personal assistant for the retired CEO of the large construction firm that built the Hoover Dam and completed major construction projects around the world. This CEO was director of half a dozen public companies, including General Electric, Chrysler, Hewlett Packard and Wells Fargo. He was extraordinarily disciplined about his use of time. Instead of taking any non-urgent phone calls, which interfered with his focus, he would take one hour each afternoon to return calls.
Levitin said that people don’t understand the cost of switching between tasks. Every time you shift from one task to another, you release stress hormones and burn glucose. That’s why three hours at your desk during a normal work day--shifting from one short meeting to the next, responding to calls and switching between tasks--will leave you exhausted and less productive than that same three hours of focused activity on a Sunday afternoon.
Along similar lines, the London School of Economics’ Paul Dolan has written of an experiment in which two groups of students were asked to complete two puzzles – one a crossword, the other the math game Sudoku. One group of students switched between puzzles every five minutes, the other completed one puzzle before going on to the next. The result: The group that completed the puzzles sequentially did so faster and more accurately.
To be more productive, Levitin strongly recommends assigning 60- to 90-minute blocks of time for important tasks and refusing to allow interruptions. The first thing that he suggests is that we turn off the sound on our computers; the ding of an incoming email provokes a Pavlovian response to drop what we’re doing, ruining our concentration and focus in the process. He suggests that we do what he does. That is, assign 15 blocks of time throughout the day to check and respond to emails. That way you can deal with emails promptly and without them disrupting your routine.
Trap three: Reduce low-priority demands on your brain
Levitin emphasizes that attention is our scarcest resource and that one way to become more productive is to minimize the time we spend on low-priority uses of attention. Some of Levitin’s suggestions:
Write down notes of key tasks, follow-up activity and anything else you need to remember. Levitin keeps index cards in his pocket for just that purpose. As soon as you write something down, your brain is released from the need to remember it and can move on to higher priority tasks.
Minimize the number of things you have to remember by putting your wallet and keys in the same place. (Levitin refers to this as “offloading memory drains to our environment.”) If you have to remember to buy milk, put a milk jug by your shoes or put a post-it note on the front door; again the fewer demands on your memory, the more your ability to focus on higher priorities
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Follow the two-minute rule. Once a day, take 20 minutes to rip through tasks that can be completed in one to two minutes. This will get them off your mind and also provide a satisfying sense of accomplishment and momentum.
Reduce distractions as much as possible. Levitin recommends that we all prune the automated emails we receive to only those that are high value; if you find yourself regularly deleting emails from Groupon or Daily Beast, it’s time to unsubscribe entirely. And if you’re really serious about reducing low-priority demands on your brain, do what Levitin does and have three email addresses – one that’s for family and close friends, a second for casual colleagues and a third that’s the public email on his university websites for everyone else.
Trap four: Take regular rest breaks
Levitin concluded with research showing that the brain works best when it works intensely for 90 minutes and then takes a break; indeed people who take regular breaks are more productive than those who work continuously. Ideally you won’t spend that break scanning the headlines of Buzzfeed or people.com, but getting up and stretching your legs; if the weather permits, take a walk outside and get some fresh air. If your work environment is conducive, it is best to take a 10- to 15-minute power nap. Research suggests that a 15-minute power nap has the same impact on your energy as an extra 90 minutes of sleep.
By applying new research from brain science, we can all operate more efficiently and effectively. For more tips to become more productive, read this Harvard Business Review interview with productivity gurus David Allen (author of Getting Things Done) and Tony Schwartz (author of Be Excellent at Anything.)
Dan Richards conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written commentaries, go to www.danrichards.com or here for his videos.
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