Eureka Moment: The Myth of Multitasking (and How to Bust It) #70

After all, all art is experience.

Hello, Gary Gamp. George, welcome. Eureka, eureka!

Another eureka moment. What a treat for everybody.

Well, you know what happened? I just kind of woke up in the middle of the night and I just had a eureka moment in the nighttime. Is that possible?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that's when many people's eureka moments happen.

Is it? I had it. I had it. And then I texted you to tell you I had a eureka moment. We rushed to do this episode before we forget what it was because I'm old.

Well, exactly. It sounds like a really good one. I think I wrote back that I was intrigued and that wasn't— that wasn't a lie. I am intrigued. So let's dive on in. We're talking about multitasking and the myth of multitasking.

Yeah, we're going to debunk the myth. Is that right? Is that a word? Debunk? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rude.

It's a great word.

No. It's not rude. Yeah, this is my epiphany in the middle of the nighttime. I've got, you know, everyone's going down a certain track for multitasking, and I think they're wrong.

Well, you know what, I've had a conversation recently with— I can't remember who it was with now, but I've noticed this trend among people saying it's very trendy now to say how busy you are, and if you're seen to be not busy, then you're a loser, or, you know, you're not working hard enough, you're not hustling. And I was sort of saying, I think— I don't think that's a very healthy attitude. It's probably a different subject, but No, not really.

I mean, we were talking earlier, we're all pretty busy, you're pretty busy. And so we do have to cope with more volume, but there's a return on investment of doing it. And that's what I was thinking about. So it's interesting because I don't want to contradict any of our episodes where we do— one of them is actually called How to Multitask for People That Can't. But you'll see in my eureka moment how I'm not going to— I'm not going to contradict, I'm just going to give other ways. But so let me share some stuff with you because it's only a 10-minute episodes. I want to bore people too much, but here's the thing, right? The reason that I want to debunk the, the myth is, interesting enough, multitasking is not very effective. I don't mean the fact that people aren't very good at doing it, but even when they do it, it's not very effective. Here's some stats. There was, there was some research done from the University of Michigan, obviously, that shows that when people keep shifting tasks, it their effectiveness, if you like, is reduced by 40%. And another survey recently was, you know, 40% drop in productivity because basically having to process things and then switch to another thing and then pick the other one thing up again.

Yeah, you're spreading yourself too thin.

You are. And then the other thing is, although that you're trying to reduce stress by doing multiple things, it actually increases stress. So the effects on stress are high. Um, University of California in San Francisco revealed that multitasking contributes to the release of stress hormones and adrenaline, which cause long-term health problems. Yeah, it's making it worse.

Yeah, well, as someone who isn't very good at multitasking but has to, I can confirm that I'm stressed.

But, but I don't know, so people are listening, think, hold on a minute, everyone's, you know, well, we're trying to find ways to do more and now you're saying it's bad for your health. Now I can't drink wine, I can't eat eggs, can't eat apples, I'm gonna eat apples. Yeah, but don't worry if you're, if you're thinking that, don't worry because I'm fine. I'm doing this again, I'm 5 minutes in. But, um, here's— let me give you the benefits, then I'm going to give you the eureka moment I had in the middle of the night. Okay, here's the benefits. There's a company called Basecamp and they've got a really good book whose name's gone completely from my head, and a good podcast. I'll think of it in a minute. We'll add it to the show notes, which is an alternative way of thinking that you'll really like if you're a practical person. You want to get stuff done. Basecamp, they sell product project management software, but their whole management style is refreshing. Yeah. And they showed that there's significant productivity boosts when you encourage single tasking amongst employees in their company.

Interesting.

And they actually reported a marked increase in the quality and the employee sat. I'm just trying to give you the benefits. Yeah. And so is there a way to multitask but by single-tasking?

God, it's tricky, isn't it? And I guess this is where the Yurik moment is going to come in. But just to sort of, just to hold that off slightly, it is almost a contradiction. And I know there are there are so many, there's so much software, isn't there? As you said, it's project management software which helps you do loads of stuff, but sort of prioritise software, you know, create a list, tick it off.

But it just nothing helps people. I think Graham on his episode Productivity Ninja gave some great ideas actually about how to manage to do this better. But, but again, it's hard for people. People go, yeah, yeah, I get it. But here's the epiphany coming, George. You ready for it?

Hit me.

Right, here. It's gonna sound funny. The eureka moment is this. It's tomato. What? Yes. What is the Italian for tomato?

Oh, um, I don't know.

Pomodoro. Pomodoro! Massimo Dutti. Yeah, not Massimo Dutti, that's a suit shop. Pomodoro. Have you ever heard of the Pomodoro Effect? No. Great, well let me tell you. So the eureka moment The way to solve multitasking by single-tasking, but in a multitasking way, is the Pomodoro Effect technique. You say an effect. Basically, you're young, so some people listening won't understand what I'm about to say, but there used to be like a timer, like a physical timer where you're in the kitchen and it's shaped like a tomato. You ever seen one of those on one of the American TV shows?

I think we had one at home when I was young.

You might have had one, right. So the reason the Pomodoro technique came around was The person that invented it came up with this concept that if you could concentrate your effort long enough and then take a break and then come back to it, you're much more effective. You'll probably find that in stuff that you're doing at the moment. So the principle is this, and I'll give you some ideas about how to use it. You set out a to-do list, so that's fine. And I know we're not talking about multitasking, But then what you do is you set your Pomodoro or your timer, physical timer, and now everyone's got iPhones, for only 25 minutes. And then you attack the task for 25 minutes only. And when the bell goes off, you have to stop for 5 minutes. Right. Go get a cup of coffee, go away from your desk, just don't work. Okay. Record your progress. And then take the break and then go back to— after the 5 minutes, go back to it and do another 25 minutes on the same task. On the same task. And then at the end of that, take a longer break. And if you still need to do more, do one more 25 minutes and that's it. No more. Don't do it anymore that day. Wow. And then if you want to move to the next one, you do a Pomodoro for that. And what they found by doing this is it creates this kind of focus. It does everything you want a to-do list to do, right? It gives you a task that you've prioritized, it's important, it gives you a focus, you get on with it, there's no excuses. But you take a break and you feel satisfied that you got something done, even if you didn't make that much progress in 25 minutes. But then you've got another shot at it, you've got the maximum of 3 shots at it, and you normally get most stuff done in an hour and a half.

Yeah.

And then you move on to the next one. If you do 2 Pomodoros in a day, you've done 2 more things you normally would do. Whereas normally when you're doing your multitasking, you're dipping in a bit, making an excuse to have a cup of coffee, go to the toilet, go for a walk, never get anything done, spread the jam so thin nothing happens. But here you've got focused effort, you're energized that you're getting something done and you're taking a break. And by the way, you're bloody making progress. That's multitasking. But using single-tasking as the focus, using a tomato.

That's excellent. I love it.

How cool is that?

Yeah, that's really good. Who would have thought the simple tomato could have been the answer to all of my problems?

The tomato is the solution to all of your problems. Yeah. Don't throw tomatoes. Don't throw tomatoes at people. Have you ever seen that in Spain there's a festival where they throw tomatoes? Yes. Don't do that.

No.

Doesn't go down well, and it doesn't get your tasks sorted out.

Especially if they're timers. Don't throw tomato.

Don't throw tomato timers at people, but get yourself a tomato timer. I think people should go to Amazon and get a tomato timer, even though you could use your iPhone, because I think it's symbolic. Yeah.

And I think if it's on your phone, you're always looking at your phone anyway. So I think ideally keep your phone close.

No distractions. Just the timer in front of you. Set it for 25 minutes. And that is my eureka moment.

Fantastic.

Yeah.

I'm going to use that this very afternoon, I think.

Are you going to go and buy yourself a tomato?

Well, I don't know if I have time for that. I haven't sort of prioritized properly, so I'll have to use my phone.

Next task.

Yeah, buy a Pomodoro.

Pomodoro technique in the bag.

Love it. Thank you so much, Gary. That's genuinely super useful, incredibly surprising, and yeah, a real epiphany moment which has been brought to light.

That's why I wake up in the night.

Hope it helps. Thanks very much, Gary. We'll see you all next time.

See you soon.