Aug 5

Want to be really bad at your job?

Try multitasking. No one is good at it, even those who think they are.

(See, even this dog is terrible at multitasking...and dogs are awesome.)

“The research is almost unanimous, which is very rare in social science, and it says that people who chronically multitask show an enormous range of deficits. They're basically terrible at all sorts of cognitive tasks, including multitasking.” (Source: NPR)
Now think of this from the leader perspective.

Why on earth do managers keep throwing a million things at their employees and then wonder why things aren’t getting done as well or as quickly as they’d like?

Stop doing that.

It’s okay to have a big list of things that need doing, but please, stop assuming or asking people to attack everything on the list at the same time. Some might get done, but others are going to drop.

And now a wise prediction.

When the VP of marketing comes in and demands you hurry and work on the 27 projects he has for you to do, throw a really big handful of M&Ms at him and yell, “CATCH!”

He’ll catch a few, but most will fall.

And now’s a perfect time to teach him a valuable lesson about multitasking.

We’re certain it will go over well.

A wise course.

You may want to share this course with everyone in your office, you know, in a really passive-aggressive kind of way.
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