Organizing Myth #1: Multi-tasking leads to being organized and productive
Are you a multitasker? If you are trying to do two or more things at the same time you are multitasking. Now, you may think that by doing that you are getting more done in a shorter amount of time but actually that is not true. New studies have shown that the more we juggle, the less productive we really are. Some studies have shown that our IQ goes down by about 10 points when we multi-task. That is about as much as skipping a night’s sleep. Can you imagine? Dr. Gary Small, a memory specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles explains, “When we’re multi-tasking, we don’t focus our attention. So information never gets into our memory stores, and so we think we don’t remember. We just never learned the information to begin with.” So maybe those “senior moments” aren’t so senior after all. Slow down and do one thing at a time and let me know if your productivity goes up. You might find you remember more too. Organizing Fact: Multi-tasking is not more productive.