Let’s stop doing it all at once (because we have so much to do).

I am a chronic multi-tasker.

Since I always have many things going on at once, I feel like I have to give attention to each. Perhaps I could say I am an recovering multi-tasker. It’s my default mode, while my wife gets much more done, partly because she tackles one thing at a time (while seemingly doing it all at once).

Study after study proves that doing anything is better than doing everything.

The Distraction Economy

20140221-064750.jpg Here’s an infographic attempting to quantify our losses, the high cost of multi-tasking. Stop whatever you’re doing and give it a look. Or, keep doing what you’re doing and add this to the list. Oh, wait …

The infographic shows that an estimated $450 billion are lost annually due to people not being immersed in the task at hand. The lack of immersion excluded, our minds are elsewhere. (On average we are looking at our cellphones 150 times daily! That’s at least every five minutes.) We even have syndromes that define the sensation of feeling like you got a text. (Click image to see full size.)

Simply put, each of us is less efficient and effective — and far less intelligent — while trying to do it all.

But wait, there’s more:

“Some of the greatest threats of multitasking are not, like those posed by texting and driving, to life and limb, but to the meaning – or lack thereof – of life itself.” 1

Yep, multi-taskers are less human too.

Happy Friday everything.

Be all there.

[HT: Marc Cortez on Everyday Theology]

  1. Quote via similar, earlier link from David Murray on Head Heart Hand.