Episode 52: How Multitasking Decreases Productivity for Teams with Darcy Luoma

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About Darcy Luoma

Resources

• Darcy Luoma’s website
• Book: The Myth of Multitasking by Dave Crenshaw

The Weekly Challenge

Transcript

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Transcript for Episode #052: How Multitasking Decreases Productivity for Teams with Darcy Luoma

Amy Climer: Welcome to the Deliberate Creative Podcast Episode 52. In today’s episode we are talking about multitasking and some of the problems related to multitasking and the myths that surround it. I have invited a friend and colleague Darcy Luoma to talk about multitasking and share her expertise and wisdom on the topic. Darcy is an amazing speaker and a coach. She’s a master certified coach with the International Coach Federation. I think you’re really going to enjoy what she has to say about multitasking. Here’s Darcy.

Darcy, welcome to the Deliberate Creative Podcast. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Darcy Luoma: Thanks, Amy. It’s great to be here.

Amy Climer: Today we are going to talk about multitasking and the connection between multitasking and creativity in teams, right?

Darcy Luoma: Absolutely

Amy Climer: This is something you have a bit of expertise in, but before we dive into that, tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are and what’s your background?

Darcy Luoma: I’ll start Amy and tell you I am a recovering multitasker.

I own a company, Darcy Luoma Coaching and Consulting and I work to create high performing people and teams. I do a lot of individual life coaching, executive coaching, training and workshops, and public speaking. To give you a little bit of a history there, it was probably about twenty years ago when I was working on a political campaign. I thought I was a master multitasker. I was absolutely doing 15 things at once. It got to the point as I was traveling for this – it was a presidential campaign where I had to, before I went to bed at night, I had to open up the drawer in the nightstand next to me in the bed, and take the phone book out and put it on the floor.

I would wake up in the middle of the night in a panic. “Where am I? Oh my god, do I have an event tomorrow?” I was traveling basically every five to ten days going to a new city. I’d be in San Francisco, then I’d fly to Boston, then I’d fly to Florida. I’d wake up in a sweat and I’d look down at the phone book and I’d say, “Oh, okay. I’m in Seattle. Seattle, it’s Tuesday. My event is Friday.” Then I’d have to write down all the things I’d have to do because the pace was so intense. The result was that I was completely overwhelmed, had total exhaustion, I was working 14 hours a day and I always felt behind. I didn’t realize multitasking wasn’t a good thing.

That’s a part of my history of why. Then, it was probably about ten years ago when my first daughter was born that I realized something had to change. I could not go this pace anymore. My boss gave me a book, a copy of Dave Crenshaw’s book, The Myth of Multitasking. I resisted. I resisted, Amy. I did not want to believe that multitasking is a myth and it’s a lie. That was the journey where I started to rethink my default on how I worked.

Amy Climer: Wow. I’ve never heard that story. That’s a great story. It’s a good thing you adjusted because there aren’t phone books in hotels anymore, so what would you do now?

Darcy Luoma: Exactly. What would I do?

Definition of Multitasking [4:01]

Amy Climer: Okay, you mentioned multitasking and doing multiple things at the same time. Is that the definition of multitasking, or is there anything more to it?

Darcy Luoma: Yeah, it is. Interestingly, the term was first created in relation to computers. It was the apparent simultaneous performance of two or more tasks by a computer’s central processing unit. When you look up multitasking Wikipedia pulls that up. They say “apparent” simultaneous performance because the computer was not doing two things at once, but it was doing them so quickly that it appeared as if the computer was multitasking. Now, if you look at the definition today, if you look at Urban Dictionary they define multitasking as a polite way of telling someone you haven’t heard a word they said.

Amy Climer: Nice, that’s so true.

Darcy Luoma: Yeah. It’s really the art of messing up several things at once. Like I said, I really fought that because I thought I was a master multitasker. Not only was I proud of it, it was something I even put on my resume and I’d talk about in interviews, that I’m a great multitasker.

Amy Climer: Wow, that’s great. I would imagine then there wasn’t as much understanding and knowledge about how it really isn’t that helpful and it isn’t good.

Darcy Luoma: I think you’re right. There wasn’t as much understanding or knowledge, and also there probably wasn’t at the time even as much in our world as now today, the number of distractions because of our handheld devices and our smart phones, the ability to multitask is constantly at your fingertips. I think that’s why there’s been a lot more research done on the impact.

Amy Climer: I’m curious, I want to go back to earlier in your life when you talked about you were what you thought was a real expert at this. Then your boss gave you this book and you were so resistant. What changed? What helped you be more open to it? Was it just like, “Okay, I’m going to have to read this book.”? Did something happen?

Darcy Luoma: Yeah. Great question. I read the book and I resisted, but what changed, was my daughter was born. I realized that this pace, working 14 hours a day and never catching up was no longer an option. I mean, I could not be at the office, I didn’t want to be at the office 14 hours a day. Yet, I had the same job, and I had to have the same level of productivity, but now I had a family and I wanted to be home. It forced me to look in the mirror and take a really deep hard look at how do I be more efficient so that I’m not constantly feeling overwhelmed and behind the eight ball and working so hard?

It was really, I absolutely remember getting this book and reading about it and being challenged to look at the research that said not only is it not efficient, there’s even more mistakes when you’re multitasking. It’s a double whammy. It was as a result of reading that and starting to make some tweaks that I started to be more efficient and have better work product, that I then started to study it more and then have been sharing it with different groups and coaching clients and things that I’ve worked with.

Amy Climer: What kind of changes did you notice once you started to try to stop multitasking? You said you felt more effective. What did you see?

Darcy Luoma: Yeah, I was more present. Not only was I more effective, I saw less errors and mistakes. I also noticed my relationships improving.

Amy Climer: Interesting.

Darcy Luoma: Instead of what I was doing, I’d be at my desk drafting an email to maybe an angry constituent. At the time I was working for Senator Kohl. A co-worker would pop in and knock on the door and say, “Hey, do you got a minute?” I wouldn’t look up and I’d be like, “Yeah, of course.” I’d keep typing. They would start asking the question and I was half listening now half working on my email. It got to the point where I couldn’t do either well. I’d turn and look and say, “Sorry, what was it you wanted?” I realized now the sentence I just typed didn’t make any sense and I have no idea what they just asked for. Not only was that inefficient I also realized as part of my growth that continuing to work on my email while somebody’s standing and I’ve got my back to them is completely rude. That’s why I say my relationships improved because I got more present to the person and the task at hand.

Amy Climer: That’s great. I mean, I can just visualize that whole thing.

Darcy Luoma: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

What Harm Does Multitasking Cause? [8:55]

Amy Climer: You’ve mentioned that multitasking is not good for productivity, and you gave a great example of how it might hurt relationships. What are some other harms that multitasking might bring about?

Darcy Luoma: Yeah. Let me answer that and share with you a little bit of the numbers that I thought were startling so that we can set the stage for what the harms are. When you look at the research, the number of interruptions each day for the average employee is 56. Every three minutes an employee is switching tasks. The time spent recovering from these distractions each day is two hours. There’s a huge cost. When you think about multitasking, it’s like if you’re in a car and you’re in traffic and you put the gas on and then the brakes and then the gas and the brakes. I’m doing my email, put the brakes on. Okay, connect with the employee, answer, go back to the email. Back and forth. It’s extremely ineffective.

Versus if you’re out on a country road on a freeway and you’re just driving and there’s a flow when you are fully present and not multitasking. Actually, it’s called switch tasking. When you look at the computer, the central processing unit, it was switching tasks so quickly that you didn’t notice. That’s what the reality is when we think that we’re multitasking is I’m switching back and forth between tasks. Sometimes it happens so quickly that you don’t even realize it. The harm is the error rate goes up, the number of mistakes, your connection and your presence goes down.

Amy Climer: I love this analogy of the car because I’m thinking of even if you’re sitting in traffic and then you start moving again, especially if you have on your car where it will tell you how many miles per gallon you’re getting. It’s like as you’re accelerating it’s like five miles per gallon. Then once you get up to speed it’s like 25, 30, 50 if you have a hybrid, whatever. That acceleration takes up so much gas, and it sounds like that’s the same thing when we switch, it’s just like, “Okay, let me get back into this email. What was this email about?”

Darcy Luoma: Yes. That’s a great analogy, Amy. I mean, I’ve never thought about that with the gas mileage. You think about how many times in the day, it’s not uncommon … Sitting at my office this morning I get an email from a newsletter, somebody I’ve signed up for their newsletter. I start reading the newsletter and I go, “Oh, this is good.” There’s a hotlink in the newsletter, so I click on the hotlink because it’s a really good study. Then in the study I realize they’ve got a Facebook page, so I’m like, “Oh, I’m going to like their page.” Now I’m on Facebook and I then see a video that’s really heartwarming, and it’s only thirty-three seconds. It makes me all teary eyed because it’s a video about moms. The next thing you know I’m calling my mom. I mean, that is highly inefficient and how quickly and easily does that happen in our lives? That’s an example where we’re multitasking and popping from one thing to the next to the next. Your gas mileage is extremely low.

Amy Climer: Yeah, that described a moment I had this morning.

Darcy Luoma: Yeah, you can relate?

How to Stop Multitasking [12:30]

Amy Climer: Yeah. I mean, I didn’t end up watching a mom video and calling my mom, but a newsletter came in and then you click on a link. Yeah, it’s all the same. Let’s talk about some advice you have to share. Okay, what do you when you’re in that situation and you see the email with the newsletter, you start reading it, it looks interesting. You want to go down that path, what do you recommend?

Darcy Luoma: Yeah, great question. I’ll give you some tips and advice. I’m going to set up this stage real quick. We talked about switching, that it’s really task switching. When you have to go back and forth and one of the things that makes it inefficient is a lot of time when you switch back you have to review what you’ve done before you can jump back in. The more complicated the task, the greater the cost. It’s called a switching cost, or the longer it takes you to jump back in like, “What was this email? Who was this person? What was the context?”

What’s important to note is there’s two kind of switches. You’ve got active switches where you’re deciding, “Okay, I’ve got this email and now there’s a newsletter. I’m going to click on it and I’m going to read that.” Then there are passive switches which are initiated by something other than you. You’re focused and you’re working on your report and the phone rings. That’s a passive switch. You are not initiating it, but the phone rings. When you look at tips or ways to be more effective, you have to take a look and do a self-assessment at where’s my worst multitasking? It may be in both places, or it may be in one or the other. Based on what you notice, are you your own worst enemy? Then there’s some, I’m going to give you some tips, versus is it other people? If that’s the case, then it’s setting some more clear boundaries.

I’ve got three ideas, takeaways to be more effective. One is to be more mindful. That’s really the opposite of multitasking is mindfulness. That’s just being fully aware in the present moment. It’s just focusing on one thing at a time. It’s this really simple act of paying attention to what’s in front of you. One tip I have for being more mindful, a tangible takeaway is to schedule a walk date with someone. You and I did this. We had a walking date instead of a coffee or a lunch date, or a phone meeting. Then you’ve got your phone in front of you, it’s dinging, you’re looking at it, people are coming in, walking, leaving. You go for a walk in the woods you’re paying attention in that moment and focusing, mindfulness, on just the conversation.

The second tip is to set clear boundaries. Again that’s a tip if you find that you have more passive switches. Setting boundaries on when are you going to have office hours? I used to have an open door policy and all the time people were coming in, “Hey do you got a minute?” I realized that was part of what was making me have 14 hour days because I didn’t have very clear boundaries.

The other thing is to have some key times when you unplug. Maybe you schedule a cyber detox. Maybe you turn your phone on sleep mode at night so that there’s certain hours. I’ve got mine set from 10:00 to 7:00 where it doesn’t make any noises unless it’s an emergency person in my contact, then it will ring. Or, you unplug at key times. You turn off the noise notifications. I used to have mine set whenever I got a new email and a new Facebook post. I have turned that off, so I don’t get any dings. I just will choose at key points during the day when I’m going to go in and check my Facebook page, or check my email.

Then the third one is to take control of your time. One of the things there to minimize multitasking I say is add fifty percent, for instance this is one tip, add fifty percent to your estimate on travel time. If you think it’s going to take you ten minutes to get somewhere, allow for fifteen. If you think it’s going to take an hour, allow for an hour and a half. That’s going to allow you to be much more present then how many times have you been late for something. You allowed ten minutes and there’s a train in front of you and now you’re driving and you’re trying to text the person to say that you’re being late. Then you realize you don’t have their email in your phone. You’re multitasking because you haven’t allowed yourself that time.

Then the other tip there on taking control of your time, this is one tip that has made the biggest impact for me is to create buffers in my schedule. For every meeting that I have I create a buffer. For me it’s thirty minutes on either end. If I got a meeting from 12:00 to 1:00 I schedule it in my calendar from 11:30 to 1:30. That allows me time to get present and grounded and centered when the meeting starts. It allows me some white space at the end to process and integrate and consolidate all of that information. Maybe write out my action items. Instead of starting my next meeting at 1:00 and now I’m multitasking because I’m trying to figure out, “Who’s this client? Where am I at? What do I need?” While I’m also trying to figure out, “I got to remember to write down that action item that I promised I was going to do.” That’s another tip that has helped me to be more effective in a very tangible way.

Amy Climer: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Just a question on that last tip there, do you ever find yourself where you schedule the meeting from 11:30 to 1:30 and it’s 11:30 and you’re like, “Actually, I have a half an hour.” You don’t take that time to sit down and get ready for the meeting. How do you keep yourself from doing that?

Darcy Luoma: Yeah, one of the things that I have found by creating that buffer is that any of those last minute things that I maybe have to multitask, that when I was scheduling the meeting from 11:00 to 12:00 and then I’ve got another meeting starting at 12:00 while the other’s ending, there’s no time for that, whatever it might be. Like, “Oh, I’ve got to quick call my mom because I noticed she called me when I was in this meeting.” Part of the benefit of having that half hour is to allow you the space to be able to do those few tweaks or things that you might need to respond to that otherwise you wouldn’t have had the time. I used to schedule my meetings, I mean this is when I resisted, I’d schedule them back to back to back. What happened was and I was fearful that creating a buffer was going to mean that I was going to be less efficient, 5:00 would come, wait a minute, I get a lot less meetings in in a day if I’ve got a buffer.

What’s interesting is what happened was in that buffer, that white space in between I was able to categorize where the notes are going, to file them away, to send a couple quick follow up emails of things I had promised during the meeting. So that at the end of the day I could leave at 5:00 instead of what was happening, “Oh my god, I had back to back to back meetings and now I can’t remember what I promised the person at 8:00 in the morning that I would do.” Now I’m multitasking. “Shoot, and I didn’t take very good notes.” Right? Now that would mean a couple extra hours because instead of doing it in the moment, I was now trying to recreate what I said, and I couldn’t remember. That thirty minutes white space allows you to do those things that I found I was doing in the evening and was not doing very efficiently. Also not doing very accurately. That’s where I found I had a lot of mistakes, I missed things.

How Multitasking Show up in Teams [19:54]

Amy Climer: That makes a lot of sense, yeah. We’ve been talking about individually how multitasking can cause problems and then how to change that. Let’s maybe switch gears a little bit and talk about teams. Does multitasking show up in teams and if so, how have you seen that and how has that impacted teams?

Darcy Luoma: Yeah. I’ll give you two examples right off the bat. I was working with a team, it was actually the leadership of a nonprofit. It was the 12 members and they were the higher level of the nonprofit. We scheduled, we were doing team coaching so I’d come at noon, we were scheduled to start at noon, I’d actually get there 11:30 and get everything set and ready. At noon nobody would be there. 12:05, and 12:07 and then 12:09 the first person would come in and then someone else would come in. Then maybe we’d get started at quarter after.

After noticing this pattern, I got curious about it and checked it out with the team. Without going into the very long version, the short version is people were multitasking before they’d come to the meeting. Be like, “I’m just going to do one more quick phone call, or I’m just going to send this email real quick.” The people who were there on time, the meeting wasn’t starting because those other people were just doing one more thing, just multitasking. The people who were there on time now were saying, “If we’re not starting on time, I’m not going to come. I’m going to pound out a couple of quick things before I start.” That became the culture.

When they looked deeper the cause, or the effect was the meetings were starting late. When we lifted the lid and looked underneath what we realized is because people were trying to get just one more thing done, just multitask. I hear from a lot of people who are late, that’s the culprit. They have this great idea that I’m just going to, fill in the blank. As opposed to pausing and leaving and getting their early. They changed their whole culture to say, “We’re starting on time regardless of who’s in the meeting.” It really took the leadership of the president to start on time regardless who was there.

The other thing that was interesting with this same team is that they all had their laptops open and people were multitasking during the meeting. We’d ask a question and I might have one person answer and pay attention. I’d say, “Joe, what do you think.” Joe would look up and say, “Sorry, what was the question?” He had just checked out for the last X number of minutes because he was doing whatever he was doing on his computer. It’s another case where I just checked in with the team and said, “This is what I’m noticing. How does that serve you?”

When we lifted the lid on that one and looked deeper what we realized is where that started is that there was one person assigned to take minutes for that team. They had their computer open and they were taking minutes. Well, because their computer was open and they were taking minutes, the ding for their email came up and they would just see that. They’d click, respond to an email. The person next to them could see that they’re now doing emails and said, “Jeez, if they’re doing emails I’m going to bring my computer.” That started, again very subconsciously, but it started this downward spiral of changing the culture to point where everybody had their laptops open and were multitasking. The meetings were incredibly inefficient. I asked, “What do you want to do about that?” They decided that they were going to have a no laptop meeting. Everybody shuts it, nobody has it open. Wouldn’t you know, the meetings became so much more effective for that team because everybody was singularly focused and present.

Amy Climer: That’s a great example. I’ve certainly seen that. I imagine most listeners have seen that or done that.

Darcy Luoma: Yeah.

Amy Climer: I’m also just thinking if everybody’s on their laptop, the meeting just seems pointless, and then you dread going to the meetings and then it’s just this downward cycle.

Darcy Luoma: Totally. The impact is that changes the whole environment for that team culture. I think you just said it where it’s just downward cycles.

Amy Climer: Yeah, I mean it’s as simple as opening or closing your laptop.

Darcy Luoma: You bet. Then that impacts creativity because now if you only have a handful of the people who are truly engaged and thinking outside the box and having this synergy and this collaboration, you’re losing a huge amount of your brain power because people are multitasking and they’re not present. You can’t do two things at once. The research is very, very clear that there’s neurological evidence that the brain cannot effectively do two things at once. You lose the ability to have more creative solutions and a dialog when people are not paying attention and single tasking.

Amy Climer: Yeah, I’m glad you said that. I’m glad you brought that up about creativity. As I’ve talked about in previous episodes and you and I have talked about this is that when there is diversity of perspectives and background and experiences, teams can be more creative together but you have to have everyone there.

Darcy Luoma: Yeah, and not only there physically, there mentally present, focused.

Amy Climer: Exactly.

Darcy Luoma: You bet.

Amy Climer: I love the example that you shared of closing the laptops and even talking about showing up on time. Any other specific tips you’d give to teams if they’re feeling like, “We might be doing too much multitasking?”

Darcy Luoma: Yeah, one of the tips is to raise awareness. I think that’s a first starting point. When I do workshops on multitasking I think there’s a whole lot of people who are in the shoes where I was where there’s this resistance. Like, “Yeah, maybe you can’t multitask, but I can. As a matter of fact, I’m really good at it.” Raising awareness that maybe you can, but it’s not effective and it reduces the connection and it reduces the … What’s the opposite of making mistakes?

Amy Climer: Success rate?

Darcy Luoma: Yeah.

Amy Climer: It would reduce the success rate of the team doing whatever they’re trying to do.

Darcy Luoma: Yeah. One of it is just raising awareness if you’re noticing in the teams that you’re on there’s a lot of multitasking, say, “Hey guys, can we check in on this. What’s the impact and how is this serving us?” Let the team have some ownership around what they want to do because a lot of times I think that awareness isn’t even there, or if it’s there, there’s a little bit of resistance to, “Well, I can do this.”

Amy Climer: Yeah, absolutely. I love the questions you ask. I know this comes from your coaching background of “are you noticing?” Now I can’t even remember what you said, exactly. Is anyone else noticing this or are you all noticing this as well and then what can we do about this?

Darcy Luoma: Yeah.

Amy Climer: As opposed to coming in with this very punitive, heavy handed approach. Just like, “Hey, let’s talk about this.”

Darcy Luoma: Yeah, punitive, or judgement or lecture, shut down your computers. Then people are sitting there and now their computer’s shut but their arms are crossed and they’re resentful and they’re starting to stonewall because they’re annoyed that you just set a rule that doesn’t work for them.

Amy Climer: Right.

Darcy Luoma: I think any time you can have the team collaboratively deciding what are the ground rules, what do we want to decide, you’re going to have more buy in.

Amy Climer: Absolutely. Yeah, sometimes I feel like when we’re talking about change, particularly with a team we like to say that everybody hates change. I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s just we don’t like change that’s shoved down our throats. If you’re bringing up this question like, “Hey, what can we do about this?” You’re basically asking for change and people might be like, “Here’s what we can do.” Then they’re going to jump right in and might be willing to go with it.

Darcy Luoma: Right. Yeah, and it’s making a distinction. You might be able to multitask, but you can’t multifocus. You’ve got 100% focus, that’s it. Wherever that is if you’re doing two things, neither of them is getting 100%. When you’re working with teams, if somebody’s only paying attention to the conversation at 40%, you’ve lost 60% of the capacity of whatever their creative solutions and ideas may be for that team.

Amy Climer: Which, wow. It’s like you’re paying them the full amount, you might as well get the full amount from them.

Darcy Luoma: Right. There’s a Russian proverb that I love and it says, “If you chase two rabbits you won’t catch either one.”

Amy Climer: So true. All right, so you’ve got to narrow in on one rabbit.

Darcy Luoma: Right, which rabbit are you chasing in this moment? Where’s your focus?

The Weekly Challenge [28:50]

Amy Climer: Darcy, we’ve talked about so much, you’ve given so many good tips about how to avoid multitasking and how to become more focused. I like to end each episode with giving listeners a weekly challenge. Something they can do this week to get started. What would you recommend? What weekly challenge would you give listeners?

Darcy Luoma: I would challenge all of your listeners, Amy, to turn off their sound notifications on their phone. Turn off the notifications for email, for texts, for Facebook for one week and just notice the impact and notice how present you are. Make conscious choices of when you’re going to go on the phone and look at things. Doing that when it’s not a time when you’re connected with or engaged in something else. Just see how much more productive you are.

Amy Climer: I love it. That’s a great idea. Even if you already have your notifications turned off, just setting aside time like, “Okay, I’m going to check email at 8:00am, noon and 5:00pm or whatever.”

Darcy Luoma: Yeah.

Amy Climer: I have all my notifications turned off, but some days I check email way more than I should.

Darcy Luoma: Yes.

Amy Climer: Sometimes I catch myself because it’s almost a habit to click this icon.

Darcy Luoma: Absolutely. It is a habit. It’s progress, it’s not perfection. There are absolutely times where we’re going to be jumping into multitasking. If you can raise awareness and start to shift that from habit to being more conscientious and more deliberative, you’re going to be going in the right direction.

Amy Climer: Nice. Darcy, if folks want to get a hold of you and learn more about the work that you do, where can they go?

Darcy Luoma: They can check out my website that’s got my email, and contact information and phone number. It’s DarcyLuoma.com.

Amy Climer: Great. I will link that up in the show notes so that people can find it there as well. Darcy, thank you so much for being on the podcast. It was great talking today.

Darcy Luoma: It is a pleasure. I love what you’re doing with your podcast, Amy. I love listening to them and learning from you and all of your guests. Thank you for the opportunity to be here.

Amy Climer: Thank you.

Darcy, thank you again for being on the Deliberate Creative Podcast. Listeners I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. I love talking with Darcy. I always learn so much and just have a good time when I’m talking with her. She’s awesome. Highly recommend going to the show notes so you access the resources that she mentioned and visit her website. You can find the show notes at ClimerConsulting.com/052.

I also recently got a couple of emails from listeners and wanted to share with you all that if you want to stay up to date on the podcast episodes and when a new one has come out, or want to know what some of the older ones are and want to stay up to date, follow me on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. All those links are on my website, ClimerConsulting.com. Facebook find me at Climer Consulting, Twitter I am @amyclimer, and LinkedIn is the same, it’s Amy Climer. Find me there, I’d love to connect with you all. If you do have questions that you want covered on a future podcast episode, send me an email. I love hearing from you all. Your questions help make this podcast even better. Have a wonderful week, I’ll talk to you next time. Bye.

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