Multi-tasking

In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield gave the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” To Chesterfield, focusing on just one thing at a time was not only practical but a mark of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”

So what are you doing right now besides reading this blog post?  Watching TV?  Baking something in the oven?  Texting/Chatting?  Working on a project at work?  I hope you're not driving! 

Unfortunately, thanks to the ever converging computer and human world of technology, multi-tasking has become the norm today.  And don't think only younger people are doing it.  Experts say that while it might be slightly more prevalent among them, it's by no means limited to them.  We are all multi-tasking at rates that are significantly higher than previous generations.

Not only that, we're all bad at it.  There's a tendency to believe that the younger generations can multi-task better.  But according to Psychologist David Meyer of the University of Michigan, younger workers are no better at multi-tasking than older workers — both make more mistakes and take longer to complete tasks.  This is because our brains can't fully focus when we try to do too much at one time.  In fact, Meyer claims that because “the brain is compelled to restart and refocus” between each task, it often takes us double the time or more to get jobs done when we multi-task than if we do them sequentially. 

It seems that more and more employers are finding this to be true, too.  In fact, many companies have concluded that multi-taskers are the worst employees, that their constant task-switching affects their quality of output.  According to Pierre Khawand, founder and CEO of a Silicon Valley-based consultancy company, "When we're working two minutes here and two minutes there, it's really hard to get deep into anything. We lose the ability to think strategically and solve deep issues."  Khawand goes on to say, "These are short spurts of low production, and we're only achieving a small five to 10% of the results we could be getting if we stayed focused."  Because of this, many companies are now looking for people who can mono-task and not freak out when they have to concentrate because they've gotten into the habit of not thinking hard.

I have to confess that when I've tried to do too many things at once, things haven't always turned out well.

Case in point.  One typical Sunday morning about ten years ago, I was running around trying to make sure everything got done before going to church.  First I let the dog out, back in, and then feed and watered her and the cat.  Next I called down the hall to my daughters, "Are you up and moving?  We don't want to be late."  As they dragged themselves out of bed to the kitchen to eat cereal for breakfast, I put eggs on to boil for next week's breakfasts, took a quick shower, dressed, brushed and fixed our youngest daughter's hair, made sure both girls had their lessons and Bibles, and then we all rushed out the door to the car. Whew, we made it!

Several hours later we came home to a funny-smelling house, and our dog, who normally greeted us at the door, was nowhere to be found.  I had forgotten the eggs!  Upstairs in the the kitchen the stove was still on and the pan of eggs was black and completely empty except for a few pieces of scorched shell.  The rest of the eggs were stuck to the kitchen ceiling.  We found our dog cowering in the basement; she had made a large mess in the middle of the floor. Later, trying to piece together what must have happened while we were gone, we figured the pan of eggs had caught fire at one point. The fact that our dog whined at any flame for months afterwards rather confirmed this. :) 

So much for multi-tasking.  The house could have burned to the ground!  Thankfully, nothing quite that dramatic has happened since, though I still often forget things. I would love to tell you I gave up multi-tasking after "the egg episode," but I didn't.  My excuse was that there was always so much to do and only a certain amount of time to get it all done.  Besides, when I looked around, others seemed to be keeping many balls in the air quite effortlessly.  Now I suspect they were just keeping their "egg episodes" a secret. 

All this multi-tasking has got me wondering, too — just how much is it affecting the way we approach the Bible?  Are we digging deeply, taking the time to systematically think things through and applying what we learn to our lives?  Or, has our culture trained us to quickly skim the surface and move on to something else, not letting it impact the way we live?