IPMA BLOGG
Efficiency is doing things right .
I am going to be a bit controversial now , and many people will disagree with my statement . Multitasking is a lie . Sorry , but you will not persuade me to believe it otherwise . Here are two reasons why I think that multitasking does not work . We cannot work on two things with our full attention , so even the name is wrong . We are not multitasking ; we are task-skipping . In other words , moving from one task to another , then another and another , and then coming back to the first one . The first problem with task skipping is that we waste a lot of time . Imagine you are reading a book . You are in your bed , in your favorite pajama , covered with a blanked and fantastic piece of knowledge in your hand . No matter how good the book is , at a certain point , you fall asleep , so you put on a bookmark and put a book aside . A day later , you are again in your bed . You grab the book , open it and start to read . But hold on , what is this part of the story about ? You need to flip two to three pages back to grasp the story , and then you continue reading where you found your bookmark . This flipping two pages back is a waste of time – from a productivity point of view . The same happens when we work on two things in parallel . We move from one project to another and waste time getting familiar with the last thing you finished on that project to continue . Not
speaking about wasting the time of fiding the last version of the document and wasting time struggling before starting to do something – there is always a good show on Netflix . The easy answer to how to fight the task skipping is to Do things right the first time . For example , if you read a book tray to finish a chapter before putting the book down . You can read about how to fight multitasking in my blog post : Just In Time in Project Management The second problem is that you don ’ t have time to think about anything deeply when you multitask . You ’ re giving the world an advantage you shouldn ’ t do . Let me put it even more straightforward if we don ’ t think deeply , we don ’ t have our own opinion because we don ’ t do the work required to have an opinion . Instead , we operate with surface knowledge . We tackle problems with the first thought that comes to mind . Because we make a poor initial decision , we spend countless hours attempting to correct it . So , again we waste time . Imagine you are in a meeting with your colleagues . Of course , you have to open your laptop because you are making notes ; let ’ s assume that for a while . While having a deep discussion
28 PROSJEKTLEDELSE • NR . 2 2022