E L S U A ~ A KM Blog Thinking Outside The Inbox by Luis Suarez

Is Multitasking Bad for the Brain?

What do you reckon? Do you think that, as the title of this blog post suggests, all of us, knowledge Web workers, are damaging our brains when we multitask? I never thought about it myself and I do a fair bit of multitasking during the course of the day, but, apparently, yes!, that seems to be the case. At least, that’s what Professor of Psychiatry and Aging, Gary Small, at UCLA’s School of Medicine, claims over at this Big Think‘s video clip: Is Multitasking Bad for the Brain? If you haven’t watched it, I would suggest you do, specially if you are a chronic multitasker.

The video lasts for nearly four minutes and in it Prof. Small gets to talk about the potential harm from Continuous Partial Attention (a.k.a. CPA) in how our brains operate to the point where we may have become rather fast at completing tasks, while we multitask, but at the same time we have become sloppier in the process. And he surely brings up a rather good point, specially when I, too, realise I have become guilty of such sloppiness, some times, while completing multiple activities at the same time, resolving in me thinking about putting a stop to it. Perhaps not a 100% radical stop, but certainly a good chunk of it. Would you be able to do the same? What do you think?

Here is some additional food for thought on this topic of the potential harm from multitasking. Have you had a chance to go and read through Peter Bregman‘s Harvard Business Review article under the title "How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking?" Or perhaps this other piece from Scientific American under the heading "Portrait of a Multitasking Mind"? Or maybe these other couple of articles by Nick Carr and my good friend Jim McGee under  "Hypermultitasking" and "Asking more relevant questions about focus and multitasking", respectively? They all bring up some good relevant insights on the pros and cons of multitasking in general, with the end result that multitasking itself may eventually be harming us, in the long run, more than whatever we may have thought in the past…

But there are plenty more insights on this very same topic. My good friends Mary Abraham and Jack Vinson have put together some really insightful and thought-provoking blog posts under the titles "Is Multitasking Ethical?" (by Mary) and Multitaskers are lousy at multitasking and "When is multitasking not multitasking" (By Jack) that will surely make you question whether it is really worth while multitasking at all, while you are doing somewhat meaningful tasks / activities. Clive Shepherd takes things even further by hinting that "task switching may just be down to sheer laziness – after all, concentrating is hard". Goodness! Right there you got another worth while reading article on the topic that clearly highlights how poorly we are at effective multitasking, if at all. All of them good reads, for sure!

However, the reflection that really struck me the most, from the very first moment that I was exposed to it, was John Medina‘s wonderful blog post titled "The brain cannot multitask" (From his rather popular Brain Rules book – No, I know! I haven’t read it just yet! But surely plan to soon!). That article alone will surely make you question really hard whether we should continue doing what we, apparently, cannot do very well: multitasking. I am not going to spoil his article over here for you. You should go ahead and read it AND watch both short video clips included in it, because they will be worth while your time to explain the various reasons why we just can’t simply work, effectively enough, in multiple activities at the same time. And his explanation of what the brain goes through is rather revealing of how we seem to keep cheating on ourselves on what we think we can do, but can’t. Amazing stuff!

So does that mean that I will stop myself multitasking altogether? Probably not. Given the current working environment we are all exposed to nowadays I’m not even sure that we would be capable of affording to stop multitasking altogether and for good. However, what I am surely planning to start doing (And I have already started it!) is tackling my biggest source of multitasking, which happens to be one rather common to most knowledge workers out there already: meetings!

Indeed, for the last few meetings I have attended, I have stopped multitasking altogether with everything that may not be related to the subject matter discussed during the meeting itself. So, in a way, I am forcing my brain to pay more attention, to grab focus back again on the various discussions going on those gatherings and to stay alert while interacting with other participants, so I can really get to learn and acquire better that new piece of knowledge. And you know what’s helping quite a lot in this whole experiment? You are probably not going to believe it, but microblogging (Or microsharing, whatever term you would prefer to use).

That’s right! If the nature of the meeting is not too private or sensitive, I’m already starting to make use of my internal microblog to capture notes, insights, reactions, thoughts, potential action items, know-how, etc. etc. with the end result that not only am I staying on track with the overall outcome of the meeting, because all of that writing helps me focus, but at the same time the entire organisation benefits from those clippings, as I am making all of that information available to everyone who may want to tune in. And, even better, I keep learning something new time and time again!

I must say that I just got started with this experiment a couple of days back, but so far it looks incredibly promising, to the point where, funny enough, some of the stress that was coming from multitasking is no longer there either! And I’m starting to enjoy those bursts of highly concentrated productivity time around a particular task that I didn’t have before when I was multitasking throughout those various different meetings. Thus, of course, I’m going to continue doing it and see how things would turn out to be over the course of time. Who knows. Perhaps I may be able to find other chunks of multitasking bursts that I can address and get rid of and since I plan to continue making use of my microblog for that purpose, as well as several other uses, there is a great chance there will be plenty more benefits coming along as time goes by. We will just have to wait and see…

For now though I’m just wondering whether other fellow knowledge workers I interact with on a regular basis would find that acceptable. I mean, the fact that I am not multitasking anymore as much and as often as I used to. What do you think? Will they find it unacceptable that I may not be readily available for unsolicited and unexpected interruptions while I am doing something else? Will I find it acceptable enough for myself to work at a slower pace, but eventually achieve and learn more in the process?

Hummm, those are going to be some interesting questions to answer over time …

Tags: Gary Small, UCLA School of Medicine, Big Think, Videos, Multitasking, Continuous Partial Attention, CPA, Peter Bregman, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, Nick Carr, Jim McGee, Mary Abraham, Jack Vinson, Clive Shepherd, John Medina, Brain Rules, Tasks, Activities, Task Management, Activity Management, Sloppiness, Work Faster, Work, Learn, Apply New Knowledge, Meetings, Microblogging, Microsharing, Lotus Connections, Connections, Virtual Meetings, Online Meetings, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Remote Collaboration, Innovation, IBM, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity

Gamers – A New Breed of Knowledge Workers in the Making?

I love TED Talks. Really. I *do* love them. And not just because of some of the most impressive and stunning visualisations that some folks have been putting together about them, like this one, but mainly due to the fact that a good number of them are amazingly inspiring and a rather clear call to action that one cannot ignore, nor neglect, just like that! No matter what subject either! Even playing games! Have you checked out Jane McGonigal‘s Gaming can make a better world? You should!

It’s totally worth every single minute of it! Those precious 20 minutes will surely change your perception, for the better, about the entire gaming industry. If you are already a serious gamer it would help reinforce what you already knew: that playing games can surely have a huge impact not only on how we conduct business, but also how we live as a society, for the better. It surely has changed my point of view to a point where I’m going to start challenging the corporate world I have been exposed to so far about finally demolishing that assumption that games are a total waste of time; specially in a working environment. Because, clearly they are not. And if you don’t believe me, check out the following slide that Jane used at her TED Talk:

I mean, who wouldn’t want to have, as a business, an employee workforce with all of that amazing talent to perform while at work? Wouldn’t you want your knowledge workers to have such amazing qualities to make a difference in your day to day business operations? Well, I don’t know about you, but I *certainly* would! Any time!

In fact, if you take things further into the next level, these very same capabilities from gamers pretty much narrow down to some of the various different characteristics from knowledge workers who have been exposed to social computing for a long while. If you don’t believe me, go and have a 30 minute conversation with that social computing evangelist working in your team and you will see what I mean. They are blissfully productive with that special fabric that social networks permeate through all along, with an on-going and ever growing urgent optimism about wanting to make things better and with a strong sense of epic meaning, wanting to change the way the corporate world has been operating under over the last few decades!

It’s rather interesting, don’t you think? I mean, I don’t consider myself a serious gamer, although I do play games every so often (Mainly on my iPhone and iPod Touch so far…), yet, while watching Jane’s talk I just couldn’t help nodding how spot on she is on the impact of gaming on our overall capability to learn, adapt, react, apply, execute and grow. It’s tremendous how over the course of the last few decades we have kept neglecting such innate playful nature from our offspring (children and youngsters alike!) as an empowering method for upskilling and developing themselves with those continuous gaming efforts in our modern world.

Maybe it’s the time for us to stop and ponder some more about how gaming could help shape not just the corporate environment we would want to have in the 21st century, but also ourselves as part of a troubled society that clearly needs a reboot in order to get back in shape, not to the level of what we may have had in the past, but already advancing into the next one: the one where we feel we are making a difference for a better world, not just for us, but, specially, for our children as well, because, after all, I keep refusing to think that the game is over. Not for us, not for them either. So next time that someone frowns upon you when they see you playing games, go and show them Jane’s TED Talk and get them involved into playing games. Games that matter. We would all be much better off. I am sure.

Tags: TED, TED Talks, Jane McGonigal, Games, Gaming, Playing Games, Serious Games, Play, Fun, Workplace, Education, Better World, Things That Matter, The Smallest Things, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, Innovation, Leadership, Leaders, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity, Reboot, Game Is Over, Game Is Not Over

Reflections on Blogging and Real Life Distractions

A good number of people have been asking me offline over the last 3 and a half weeks whether I have finally abandoned this blog for good and moved into something else, since I have gone rather quiet as of late and no new blog posts have been making it thus far for a little while now. Well, my answer: no further than the truth. There is no way I’m going to give up on blogging any time soon! Thus, from here onwards, my usual regular blogging will continue for many moons to come … What happened then?

Well, in the last few weeks things have been incredibly hectic at work for me working on multiple initiatives trying to help accelerate the adoption rate of social software inside IBM (I’m hoping to be able to share some of those insights pretty soon, too!), at the same time that I have been doing a fair bit of travelling (3 trips in a week!) presenting at various events, including the cancellation of another business trip to Madrid to conduct a workshop on Social Software Adoption, which I will be going for next Sunday for a couple of days…

That business travelling involved putting together a good bunch of presentation materials, which, in between meetings galore for most times, as well as presenting at those events, have taken most of the time, specially the time I’d normally dedicate to blogging. Of course, I will shortly be sharing with you folks what all of that travelling was about, since there is a lot to share on each and everyone of them, but, as a teaser, they all had to do with Día del Emprendedor (Day of the Entrepreneur), a face to face event that took place over the course of one week in all of the Canary Islands and which, overall, was a rather unique experience that left a mark on me I never expected to have… And very soon you will know why.

With all of that frenzy happening at work, you can imagine how there was very little energy left to, on top of that, continue blogging away, right? So I needed to take a break, unwind from everything, recharge my batteries again, get back into the full swing of things… and I did that on the weekends, which I guess that’s what they are meant for, right?, specially when you live where I live

So for the last three weekends I have been out of the house enjoying some stunning spring weather over here in Gran Canaria, taking with me my camera trying to grab some breath-taking snapshots of very special moments: those that help you understand and treasure how powerful it can well be being disconnected from everything and focus on the little things that matter…

And, boy, was it worth it? Every minute of it! I have been sharing a good number of those snapshots on my Flickr account already, but I thought I would share a few of those pictures over here so you could have a look into the kind of wonders and diversity I have been exposed to in the last couple of weeks, and why, time and time again, enjoying real life seems to have won over my usual regular blogging over here. With the good fine effect that I’m now back in full force wanting to share a whole bunch of really cool stuff I have bumped into during the last few days and which will keep me buzzing away for a long while still.

Thus, like I said at the beginning … no, I haven’t given up on blogging; not even a remote chance of that happening any time soon! Quite the opposite! Why would I want to mute myself? Why would I want to quiet down my voice, when there is just so much to share and learn from? Why would I want to kill the very same reason why I got involved with social computing in the first place a few years back? Just doesn’t sound right, does it? Yes, there may have been a few days where I have gone dormant but for a good reason. A chance for me to step back, relax, unwind, refocus and get ready for some more! And try to continue providing some good quality blogging that other folks out there may be able to enjoy reading, just as much as I do putting those articles together in the first place … And certainly visiting some of the places like the ones you are going to see on the pictures shared below helps… And a lot!

Yes, I agree, it’s good to be back!

Oh, of course, another year has gone by and, as you can imagine, I couldn’t miss it and let it go by just like that … Yummy!! What do you think? Fancy joining me again next year for one of these? Around mid-May? Get in touch!

Tags: Gran Canaria, Distractions, Real Life, Blogging, Metablogging, Blogs, Travelling, Día del Emprendedor, Business Trips, Spain, IBM, Flickr, Maspalomas, Maspalomas Dunes, Dunes, Charca de Maspalomas, Dedo de Dios, God’s Finger, Mogán, El Tablero de Maspalomas, Paellas, Giant Paella, Fiesta, Work, Life Balance, Work Life Integration, Things That Matter, The Smallest Things, Unwinding, Relaxing, Refocusing, Refocus