> I think that's the right idea. Caveat emptor working on many tasks in > parallel (multi-tasking) really doesn't work on any level (individual, team > etc), see:http://www.infoq.com/articles/multitasking-problems
@Mark I found that read quite funny and a little bit sad. Have you actually read the material? It starts with well documented studies that show that the human brain cannot handle simultaneous multitasking very well. It then tries to expand this to concurrent multitasking (sequential uni-tasking) by referencing some studies that show that Microsoft employees take 15 minutes to get back on task when they are interrupted (because they take the interruption as an opportunity to check their email, browse the web, make phone calls, etc). There was also a study that claimed an average interruption rate of once every 11 minutes with an average back on task time of 25 minutes (so you apparently get interrupted twice more before you get back on task, but that should extend your back on task time to 75 minutes, letting you get interrupted 4 more times, ...) It is obvious here that the culprit is not concurrent multitasking but instead the interruptions (which will happen even with strict uni-tasking until the project is done) and discipline and focus in getting back to work after the interruption. They even try to use a study of a recruiting firm that has found that their agent's optimal performance is with 4-6 concurrent projects (beyond that the performance decreases) as evidence that concurrent projects are a bad thing. The data is there plain as day. I don't dispute the data, I just think it funny and sad that they are trying to twist the data to make it fit their discussion point. That said I wish my boss would read (and believe) these articles. I could use the reduction in workload under the guise of increasing my productivity. My job closely fits the recruiting firm's workload, and the project time schedules would not be reduced any by using the strict uni-task until the project is complete. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MyLifeOrganized" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/mylifeorganized?hl=en.
