“Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl
is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.”
Albert Einstein
I was recently re-looking at an interview I did on Ireland’s national television station, RTE, about productivity and using your time better.
I remember laughing at myself afterwards, as I spent about 3 hours preparing for what was ultimately a 3 minute slot. One of the benefits of that work however was coming across some research on multi-tasking which boiled down to one thing… It’s all a lie.
Yes you can do two things at once, but you can’t do two things effectively at once. Yet in today’s business world, multi-tasking is almost seen as the default way of working. If you own or run a business or team, or indeed if you’re looking to advance in your career, here’s some very important research coming out of Stanford: – A minimum of 30% of your day is lost to the ineffectiveness of multi-tasking. (that’s a minimum – imagine the cost to you and your business over a year?)
That research is backed up by my own experience, although I would have said 50%.
The solution?
First of all, share this information with the people who need to hear it. Then, for the things that matter most, create some time and space where you won’t be interrupted and you can just focus on the task at hand.
In my experience, those who succeed are those who have phenomenal focus on the things that really matter most.
So either drive or kiss, because doing both at the same time is dangerous and much less pleasurable. 🙂
You can watch that interview on RTE below: