Chapter 18 The Art of Concentration

I’m willing to bet the farm that sometime in the last 48 hours, if not the last four hours, you engaged in some form of multitasking—doing two or more things at the same time. It’s likely you’ve been working on a personal computer recently, and that while you were running the word-processing software, you may have been engaging the printer, a pop-up spreadsheet, and a calendar as well.

From the notebook PC that sits on your lap to the huge supercomputers that fill rooms, computers are well equipped to handle more than one task at a time. Human beings, however, are not computers, no matter what you may have heard. Stay tuned; this chapter will explore this case of mistaken identity.

Too Much to Do

When you’re working with your PC, trying to answer the phone or open mail, trying to respond to the fax machine or the request from the next head to pop in your door, and whatever else you can add to this list—and when you attempt to entertain them all—you are attempting to engage in multitasking. It’s a computer term, and there’s a reason for that: It’s a computer function. Unlike the computer, you’re likely to do an unsatisfactory job when you multitask.

Singling Things Out

All things considered, you work best when you focus on one thing at a time. On many levels you probably know this already, but when is the last time you practiced it? Probably not recently. It’s too easy to fall into a familiar trap: “So much is expected of me, I have to double and triple my activities.”

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 Time Out! At the workplace and at home, trying to multitask ensures that you’ll miss your day, week, and ultimately your life. I know people who are 40 years old who can’t remember where their 30s went, and people who are 50 who can’t remember where their 40s went.

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Nearly every message in society says it’s okay—or necessary—to double or triple the number of activities you perform at once. You see advertisements of people talking on the phone while they watch television, or eating while they read.

The Urge to Urgency

Bob W., age 41, works for a large brokerage firm in the International Square building in Washington, D.C. He is friendly, successful, and always in a rush. He talks fast, moves fast, eats fast, and never lets up. Bob is hooked on multitasking. Many executives and career-climbers suffer from a misdirected sense of urgency stemming from far too many tasks and responsibilities. Certainly, it’s appropriate to work more quickly than normal at certain times. It’s a problem, however, when it becomes a standard operating procedure.

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 A Stitch in Time Any time you undertake original or creative thinking—work with numbers, charts, or graphs; or writing, copy-editing, or proofreading—put aside all other tasks until you’ve finished. Diverting your attention is bound to result in far less than your best effort; often it leads to costly errors.

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A Shared Burden

Research suggests that when you do two things at once, it’s probably symptomatic of an ability (and burden) shared by the whole human species. That doesn’t necessarily make it effective. The false economy of attempting to do two things at once is ingrained in a culture that rewards the workaholic, the 16-hour-a-day entrepreneur, the supermom, and the hyper-energetic high school student.

What’s more, the mental and psychic toll you place on yourself in attempting multitasking (or in doing one stressful job for too long) can be harmful. Your brain can become overtaxed!

Consider the case of air-traffic controllers who have been on duty too long, had too many planes come in at a given time, and have the responsibility of keeping hundreds of lives safe by making the right decisions with split-second timing. It’s no wonder that this is a high-stress, high-burnout position, one that professionals usually abandon at a young age.

Business Isn’t Busy-ness

Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin have found that if you perform a task as simple as tapping your foot, you activate the primary motor in your cortex, a section of your brain. If your task is more involved, if it includes planning to tap your foot to a sequence (such as one-two, one-two-three, one-two, one-two-three), then two secondary motor areas in the front of the cortex are engaged. You are drawing upon more of your brain’s functioning capacity.

Don’t worry, your brain can handle it. The point is that when you engage in multitasking—such as attempting to watch TV while eating, or doodling while you talk on the telephone—your brain functioning changes to incorporate the extra activities.

If you want to do the best at whatever you’re doing, allow your brain to concentrate on one activity—focus on one thing at a time. If it’s a complex task, consider whether you’re working on several parts of the same task or two different tasks. It sounds simple enough, but this advice goes against the grain of a society that tells you to do many things at once so you can “be more efficient.” You see this every day: someone jogging down the road listening to a Walkman, or doing work or reading while eating lunch. People double their activities, as if that will make things easier and better.

I sometimes conduct a brief exercise with my audiences when speaking at conventions and executive retreats. I ask audience members to take out their watches and do nothing but stare at them for a solid minute. No one can do it! In this society, you’re fed a message that emphasizes the importance of motion and activity. Merely reading, thinking, or reflecting doesn’t look busy enough.

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 Chronos Says “Men give me some credit for genius. All the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject at hand I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the effort which I have made is what people are pleased to call the fruit of genius. It is instead the fruit of labor and thought.”—Alexander Hamilton

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Has the following happened to you? Somebody walks by your desk and, horror of horrors, you’re reading! Maybe the person looks at you a little funny, or perhaps you feel a bit guilty because you’re not “in motion.” Yet studies show that informed people in executive positions need to read professional journals and reports for two to four hours each day. So to be as productive as you need to be, you often act in ways that run counter to what society tells you is “productive activity.”

The Productive Potential of Doing Nothing

To reach your full potential, you’ve got to break out of the mind set imposed by others. Sometimes the best way to be productive is to sit at your desk doing nothing—at least nothing that looks like anything to people walking by. Reading or looking out the window in contemplation could be the single most important and productive thing you do in a day. Too often, you probably throw your time at tasks when you really need to reflect on them first.

What happens when you jump between different projects? It may feel “dynamic”—after all, you’re exerting lots of energy. Yet there’s a loss of productivity. You and a friend can test this easily at your desk or table. Decide on any three minor tasks in which the two of you can engage simultaneously. One task could be stacking pennies; another could be drawing 15 stars on a blank sheet of paper; a third could be linking paper clips. You each have the same number of items.

You and your friend start these tasks at the same time. You stack a few pennies at a time, make a few stars on a blank piece of paper, and link some paper clips, indiscriminately alternating between the three tasks. Meanwhile, on the other side of the table, your friend stacks an equal number of pennies to completion until there are no more. Then (s)he turns to making stars on a page and reaches 15. Finally comes linking the paper clips until they’re all linked.

Who do you think will not only finish faster and easier, but will be in better shape mentally and emotionally? I’ll bet on your friend who focused on the task at hand, took it to completion, then turned to the next one while you (ha-ha-ha) were bouncing back and forth between activities. You may have been more prone to errors, such as knocking over one of your stacks of pennies. Even if you were quite an adept task-juggler, you simply couldn’t keep pace. The quality of your work was not as good. Perhaps your paper clips became tangled, or the 15 stars you drew on the page lacked a little artistic merit.

Multiply the effect of this simple test by the number of times you flip-flop between activities in a day or year, and it’s easy to understand why you’re not getting the best results from all that activity. Continually switching from task to task is just not as productive as staying on one job until completion.

Regaining Control

For today, give yourself the benefit of working on one thing at a time. You may have to switch gears when the boss comes in, when that important phone call comes through, or if you receive a fax that has to be acted on right away. When you switch gears, switch them entirely: Give your complete and undivided attention to the pressing issue at hand. Try it out. You might find that this is a happier, more effective way to work.

If you notice yourself falling into behavior patterns that resemble computerized multitasking, try these solutions:

• Take a 15-minute break once during the morning and once in the afternoon. That also means: Don’t eat at your desk. Get away so you can recharge your battery.

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   A Stitch in Time The single best way to cope with a number of different projects is to begin working on one thing until its completion, and then go on to the next project, and then the next, until you are finished.

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• Invest in equipment or technology that offers you a significant return—that is, it pays for itself within one year or less, or it saves at least two hours a week of your time.
• Hold regular meetings with your team to discuss how everyone can be more efficient—without multitasking. Focus on the big picture of what you’re all trying to accomplish. Often, new solutions to old problems will emerge, and activities that seem urgent can be viewed from a broader prospective.
• For a more human workplace, furnish your office with plants, pictures, art, or decorations that inspire creativity.

You Created the Situation

Robert Fritz says that when you are feeling overwhelmed or time-stressed, ask yourself, “Who created this situation?” The answer is usually you.

Of course, there are times when the boss lays a bombshell on your desk and you’re asked to do more than usual. It’s still your responsibility to head off this threat to your time. You need to invest in resources that will equip you to handle tasks that come your way, whether it’s learning new software, learning a new language, or acquiring more training.

A System for Handling Distraction

In 1990, author Alvin Toffler told me that the workplace is a terrible place to get things done these days. With the distractions in your office, it’s often better to work at the library, in the conference room, or on a park bench. This is especially true when you’re doing conceptual or breakthrough thinking, when you need to have quiet space.

I was once consulting for a supervisor in Minnesota with six employees; he wanted to use his time more efficiently. He said his employees came to him with questions every couple of hours. That seemed harmless enough, but look at how it built up: If an employee asked a question every two hours, the supervisor got four from that person each day.

With six employees, that meant 24 questions a day, or 120 interruptions each week, resulting in disruptions of the manager’s work three times each hour in a 40-hour week! I devised a system to help him cope with the interruptions and regain control of his time; I called it the “J-4 System.” (The J was for Jeff. You can use your own initial.)

Simplifying Life the J-4 Way

I had the supervisor put the questions into four categories of manageability. The first distraction, J-1, was already answered in print and did not need a personal reply (it was in the company policy manual). The supervisor was then able to tell his employees, “Please don’t bother me with J-1 distractions.”

The second distraction, J-2, was a question that a peer or bookkeeper could answer; the supervisor did not need to be bothered with this type of question either.

J-3s needed only a straightforward, short answer of yes or no. Such questions required interaction with the supervisor, but not much—a quick phone call or a buzz on the intercom.

The final category, J-4 distractions, required the supervisor’s input—he needed to answer them.

How many questions were at the J-4 level of importance? Even assuming each person asked two J-4 questions per day—60 interruptions each week—this would cut the number of interruptions in half! Almost immediately, the supervisor was able to better use his time and reduce his level of stress.

With this system, you’ll gain greater control over your work, you’ll find more time, and you’ll feel more relaxed as that knot in your stomach begins to unravel. You’ll even be able to do breakthrough creative thinking at your own desk.

The number of distractions—the things competing for your time and attention—is infinite. You’re only going to have more distractions in the future, not fewer. To regain control over your life, learn to cope with distractions in new ways.

When Anxiety Tugs at Your Shoulder

I once heard anxiety defined as “the attempted unification of opposing forces.” What majesty—this says it all! Anytime you’re anxious, stop and figure out what opposing forces you’re attempting to unite. Are you working on some low-level task when there’s something far more important for you to give your attention to? You feel anxious. Your intuitive alarm system is ringing.

Your anxiety stems from your attempt to work on a low-level project (force #1) when you know there’s something else that’s more appropriate for you to be working on (force #2).

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 A Stitch in Time Classify the types of interruptions you receive; then you can cut them down and cope with them better.

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If you’ve been multitasking for a long time and suddenly attempt to switch to working on one thing at a time, guess what happens? You may feel a sudden increase in anxiety. It’s like trying to kick an addiction to a chemical stimulant. You want to get off, and know you’ll be better for doing it. But as you attempt to do without the stimulant, maybe you don’t feel so good. The natural inclination is to get back into the addiction. So it is with multitasking—but what if that “dynamic” feeling is no more than an unproductive high?

Let’s Play Concentration

To become a master of doing one thing at a time, pick an activity you enjoy, where there’s a high probability that you can engage in it without doing anything else. It might be driving your car with the radio off, reading in your favorite armchair without having any munchies, or just listening to music instead of banishing it to the background.

• Start with small segments. If you’re reading in your favorite armchair, promise yourself you’ll go 10 minutes without any munchies the first night. The second night, go 15, then 20, and so forth. Eventually you may get to the point where you can read for an hour or more without having to resort to snacks.
• If you’re seeking to read, engage in conceptual or breakthrough thinking, or do some creative problem solving, find as quiet and comfortable a place as possible.
• If you’re surrounded by all manner of tasks competing for your attention, identify the one that’s most important to tackle, and stay with it until completion (or for as long as you can). If you’re temporarily pulled away by something else, return to the important task at hand; again, stay with it to completion or for as long as you can.
• If you are paid to handle a multiplicity of items competing for your attention, practice giving short bursts of full attention to the task at hand before turning to the next thing demanding your attention.

  Consider an airline reservation attendant in the middle of a high pressure situation. The approach is one person-and-ticket situation at a time; often the attendant doesn’t even look up from the computer monitor. The same principle holds for a good bank teller, a good bus driver, or a construction worker walking on scaffolding five stories above the ground.

• Initiate personal balancing techniques: take deep breaths, stare out the window, see yourself as tackling the situation easily. Or try closing your eyes for a few seconds before confronting the task again. (More on this in the forthcoming chapters.)
• Observe the people in your organization who concentrate well. What do they do that’s different from what everybody else does? Talk to them; learn from them.
• If it’s necessary, bring earplugs to work. Use a sound screen if it helps. (See Chapter 8, “To Sleep, Perchance to Not Wake Up Exhausted.”)
• Let others in on your quest to increase your powers of concentration. Mutual reinforcement can help.
• Practice using the interruption-management system discussed earlier in this chapter.

Okay, There Are Some Exceptions

For the most part, leave the multitasking to the computers. However, there are a few times when it’s perfectly permissible to do more than one thing at a time—and most of these occur away from work. Obviously, at dinner with a friend or loved one you’ll be talking and eating simultaneously, but that can be seen as one event (in some parts of the South, they call it “visiting,” and it claims a person’s whole attention). Generally, it’s okay to drive and listen to the radio, cassettes, or CDs. The exception is when the decibel level is so high that your concentration is impaired (or you don’t hear that ambulance).

Exercising with a Walkman isn’t terrible, but it’s not the greatest. At my health club recently, I was bemused to see a lady who was not only on the stair-climber with a Walkman, but she then opened a book and started to read. I almost asked if she wanted to chew some gum, to see whether she could do four things at once.

Physical exercise is ideally its own reward. Still, I know many people who use workout exercise tapes or get on a stationary bike while watching television. It seems to work well for them, so there’s probably no real harm.

Other activities where it’s okay to double up include the following: walking and talking with a friend, taking notes as you listen to a lecture, and talking to your lover while you’re having sex (depending on your partner, this can enhance the experience).