Yesterday I experienced either a new, as yet un-described side-effect from an asthma medication or a new multitasking morbidity. I take a dry-powder inhaler in the autumn and winter as a bit of insurance against mild bronchial hyper-reactivity that has been a minor annoyance since childhood. I probably don’t even need it.
To briefly set the stage, yesterday was a typical “I’m-a-bit-later-than-I-wanted-to-be-so-I-had-better-try-to-cram-the-things-I-need-to-do-into-less-time” morning. During the week I get up several hours before I have to be at work to think, read, write, pray, exercise a little; to spend a little time with my wife and see the kids off. (It helps living a ten minute bicycle ride from the hospital.) Yesterday I spent a little too long in the thinking/praying/reading mode. I had to make up time.
So while I was fumbling in my toiletry bag for my hair brush (more an exercise in scalp massage than any real rearranging of hair) and running hot water for my shaving mug and brush, I put the asthma discus to my mouth and took my daily dose. In my haste, clouded by attempting several small motor activities simultaneously, I slammed the inhaler shut while it was still in my mouth and caught my bottom lip in the sliding device. The missing piece of lip oozed blood all day. It presented the interesting challenge of having to explain the injury to anyone who asked. (“Well no, I didn’t cut myself shaving, you see I was in a hurry, and…”)
In a letter to his son more than two hundred years ago, Lord Chesterfield advised: “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.” Multitasking may be exhilarating, but it comes at a price. We end up doing several things at the same time merely adequately or even inadequately but certainly not well. I contend that what we call multitasking is really serial mono-tasking, and by switching back and forth we too often end up unable to focus on any one thing. We end up with a bleeding lip. Or worse.
How can we learn to drown out the background noise and focus again? Could it begin with single acts? A colleague noticed a while back that no matter what meeting I was in, when I got a text on my “family phone” I took it, ignoring even the people who were briefing. It was somewhat damning. I have stopped doing that. I get up from the computer when someone comes in the office to ask me a question. And of course, I will be much more cautious about doing simple mechanical tasks in deliberate sequence.
Daniel Patrick Forrester said it well in his book: “Many of us depend on multi-tasking as the only way to get everything done. However, you do injustice to everything and everybody you’re splitting time between…We’re sequential beings not simultaneous. One thing at a time: it’s been around as a basic principle since the dawn of time.” (Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking in Your Organization.)
One thing at a time, doctor. And here’s a Kleenex. Your lip’s bleeding.
Chuck Callahan Henry V 4.3 – Lead from the Front https://henryv43.wordpress.com/
Henry V 4.3 
Chuck – humorous story right on point. You have a gift! There is a great book called “Brain Rules” – it’s a well-rounded look at elements of human performance and it discusses the fallacy of multi-tasking. You’ll enjoy it. As you pointed out, we get addicted to the activity of many things vs doing few things really well. I think we sometimes like MT because we fear failure. If the object of our focus fails, we can blame it on “all the other stuff” we had on our plate. What a waste. This is where good senior leadership comes in – rewarding good, focused execution, even if the project does not ultimately produce the results we want. The thing is, failure is a by-product of innovation. We should all learn to execute with focused drive, and if it fails, reflect on the lessons and try something else. The market provides too many opportunities for failure, we ought not shoot ourselves first with a lack of focused execution.
Thanks Brady. Absolutely agree and would add that as leaders we have to model good, focused execution and allow for innovation failures. Love Teddy Roosevelt on this: “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” WR/Chuck