Recently been nominated for a training on "Kanban" approach for process improvement. Literally it means "signboard" in Japanese. It was first used by Toyota apparently in their manufacturing process to set reorder levels for inventory management.
What came across as a vital learning was the topic covered under the title, "The myth of multitasking". It would be very useful if one would use a pen and paper and do it oneself to get better insights. It does not take more than 60 seconds. Am of the opinion this exercise can add several productive years in one's lifetime.
Ready?
As a first task, the trainer asked us to write a sequence of natural numbers 1,2,3... as many as we could in 10 seconds. He counted to ten with a stopwatch.
Then he asked us to write a sequence of alphabets A,B,C ... as many as we could in 10 seconds and if we reached up to Z, cycle back to A and continue.
As a third task, he asked us to write a sequence such as A1B2C3... for 20 seconds.
Highly recommended that the three tasks above be performed before reading further.
Assuming it is done, it would be quite evident how our efficiency and productivity degrade when we try to multitask with alternate alphabets and number sequences. Multitasking even such simple things is not a worthwhile exercise.
We may get different insights from this exercise based on our past experiences. But possibly one common observation. "We are better off focusing on one task at a time before moving on to the next".
Of course this does not mean being hung up on one thing is a good idea! That is a different topic altogether.
What came across as a vital learning was the topic covered under the title, "The myth of multitasking". It would be very useful if one would use a pen and paper and do it oneself to get better insights. It does not take more than 60 seconds. Am of the opinion this exercise can add several productive years in one's lifetime.
Ready?
As a first task, the trainer asked us to write a sequence of natural numbers 1,2,3... as many as we could in 10 seconds. He counted to ten with a stopwatch.
Then he asked us to write a sequence of alphabets A,B,C ... as many as we could in 10 seconds and if we reached up to Z, cycle back to A and continue.
As a third task, he asked us to write a sequence such as A1B2C3... for 20 seconds.
Highly recommended that the three tasks above be performed before reading further.
Assuming it is done, it would be quite evident how our efficiency and productivity degrade when we try to multitask with alternate alphabets and number sequences. Multitasking even such simple things is not a worthwhile exercise.
We may get different insights from this exercise based on our past experiences. But possibly one common observation. "We are better off focusing on one task at a time before moving on to the next".
Of course this does not mean being hung up on one thing is a good idea! That is a different topic altogether.
2 comments:
while it is true that we are better off focused on one thing at a time, would not training help one to do multitasking that much easier... should we not train our mind to be handling more than one thing at a time....isn't that what we should be capable of..
Perhaps true. But 99% of the time we only create an illusion of multitasking whereas our brain is not made for it. Perhaps we may train ourselves to develop muscle memory for repetitive tasks or skills requiring hand-eye co-ordination and keep the brain's resources for learning and creative work.
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