In Defense of Multi-tasking, or How I Justify Driving and Texting
Friday, September 4, 2009 at 1:06PM
Not really. It's hard to text at 80mph.
Kidding. Sort of.
But that's between me and my traffic attorney. (Thanks, Timothy!)
Recently, multitasking - that darling of 80's productivity - has gotten a bad rap. It turns out that multittasking makes it harder for your brain to focus or switch between complicated tasks. (Tip: avoid complicated tasks; works like the dickens!)
Here's the thing about these studies, though. They all treat multitasking as if it is some kind of weird street performance involving juggling a smart phone, a laptop and two flaming chain saws. That kind of misses the point.
I know fairly few lawyers who literally try to talk to a client on the phone while simultaneously sending an email to a spouse and reviewing a contract in a different matter. More likely, all of these tasks are open on the desk in front of them and the attorney tries to quickly switch between the tasks. Sadly, even this may be making us stupider. (Damn you, Twitter!)
But is multitasking, as put into actual practice, really that bad?
Take my day today for example.
I have the day off today. I decided to drive my wife's car out to a body shop to get an estimate on some work that needs to be done (no, smart aleck, the damage was not caused by texting and driving. A branch fell on our car while it was parked in our driveway. So the damage was caused by an altogether too casual approach to lawn maintenance. See? Multitasking not involved.)
While I was at the body shop, I got a bunch of emails from bar association members that I needed to return. So, while the body shop guys were preparing their estimate, I sat in their lobby with my Palm Pre and fired off a bunch of emails.
This, to me, is multitasking. I was on a mission to get one thing done - namely, the estimate for body work. Had I not had my smart phone (or had I cared more about the possible damage to my cognitive powers CNN warned about) I would have paged through a magazine while my email inbox overflowed and bar association members went without answers.
(Sidebar: seriously, CNN is warning people off of multitasking? A few seconds watching CNN, with it's mind-bending array of crawls, headlines, graphics and Wolf Blitzer shouting from in front of a bazillion tv monitors, is enough to induce a Manchurian Candidate like reaction in almost anyone.)
But I digress.
This kind of multitasking - by which I mean the technology-enabled ability to productively work from anywhere - is a boon to lawyers and clients alike (not to mention bar association practice management advisors...) It's not dangerous, it reduced my stress level and spared me the embarrassment of reading O magazine in front of a bunch of guys who already thought my sandals were not the most masculine footwear I could have chosen.
So, go on ahead and multitask. Find and use the technology that allows you to be productive from those black holes in life where you are typically neither productive nor having fun (doctors' offices, airports, body shops).
Just don't do it while you're going 80 down the interstate.
Productivity in Management 
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Reader Comments (3)
Maybe lawyers have always multi-tasked, even before technology or the word "multitask" was invented. I worked for a lawyer like that once, only I called it "attention deficit disorder." I would be in the middle of explaining some research results when he'd pick up the phone, make a call, and while on hold, shout to his secretary to do something, as he sliced open mail and ate a cold sandwich.
I think the cautions against multitasking are essentially encouragement to do one thing at a time. When you were sending those e-mails, you weren't also trying to watch TV or fix your car yourself; you were focused on sending the e-mails. That's different from juggling multiple tasks at once.
I do think it depends on your definition of multitasking--say, the difference between texting while driving to work and texting while riding the bus to work. In both situations, you're texting while commuting to work, therefore multitasking, but one option makes people wince while the other makes them shrug in indifference. Clearly, texting in no way hampers your ability to ride a bus.
The same can be said about multitasking while at work. Some tasks can certainly be done at the same time without hindering your ability to do either (and often this depends on each individual's personality and how their brain's work). However, when you constantly flip between tasks that require similar parts of your brain, you never fully focus on either. Instead of increasing your productivity, this decreases it because you aren't able to complete either task as quickly as you would have been able to if you focused first on one and then on the other.
Instead of trying to cram as much as you can into one moment, give each task the attention it deserves. You'll be much more productive in the long run.