Poor Pooh Bear, the Multitasker

Here’s an excerpt from great piece by Maria Konnikova posted in Scientific American:  What Can Winnie-the-Pooh Teach Us About Media Multitasking?

I’d say more, but the piece speaks for itself and, dear reader, to say more would just be preaching to the choir.

Credit: Crabchick, Creative Commons.

In the very first paragraph of the very first chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh, Milne uses Edward Bear—newly dubbed Winnie-the-Pooh—to illustrate a concept that is no less (and perhaps far more) relevant now than it was back in the days of Christopher Robin’s childhood: we can’t think straight when our head is busy doing something else. Milne writes:

Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.

Oh, the perils of multitasking for proper thought. Pooh would like to think of a better way to travel down stairs—but he can’t, not as long as his thought process keeps being interrupted by the next stair. And what are those bump-bump-bumps but the exact kind of taxing interruption that we place on our own minds, of our own choice? We don’t need Christopher Robin to drag us down a set of stairs. We are very capable of doing it to ourselves, thank you very much.

Think of each step as one more thing that keeps getting in the way of what you’d originally meant to be thinking—in Pooh’s world, how to get down stairs; in yours, anything that you were trying to accomplish. Each new input—an email, a phone call, a chat message that pops up on your screen, a beep from your phone that reminds you of something you were supposed to do—serves as a bump that, quite literally, interrupts the thought process in a physical way. And when you resume it? You have to try to recreate your brain’s path, retrace your steps, take a moment to gather your mental resources – all at an incredible cost to both quality and speed.

Just like Pooh’s mind isn’t meant to think when it is bouncing down steps, ours aren’t meant to multitask. We are horrible at it. Good multitaskers? They don’t exist. Even the self-proclaimed best of the best perform far worse at just about anything when they are multitasking than when they focus on one thing at a time. In one study, those people who defined themselves as successful heavy media multitaskers, consuming multiple content streams at once with ease, were actually more susceptible to both irrelevant environmental stimuli and irrelevant representations in memory. As a result, they were far more likely to get distracted and became worse instead of better at task-switching. And isn’t task-switching just where you’d expect good multitaskers to excel?

See the full article at:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/literally-psyched/2011/12/21/what-can-winnie-the-pooh-teach-us-about-media-multitasking/?mid=55

Exercising SelfControl (C) to Avoid Interruptions

There are many ways to stop intrusions into your focused time. Turn off the cell phone. Leave the computer. Shut the office door, if you have one.

I close the door and hang up a “Do Not Disturb” sign to signal that I am immersed in some project, on a conference call or an important phone call.

When it’s a less serious project, like some research reading I have to catch up on, but not terrifically time-sensitive, I have one that says “Please Knock.” With this one, if people really need me, they will knock, or if it’s a trivial matter, they just wait until I come up for air. These signs have worked pretty well for me.

If you’re working on the computer, avoiding distractions might not be so easy. By now, most people have learned to turn off pop-ups to limit distractions as they work online. That stops popups from coming to you, but what about the distractions that you initiate?

We understand: You’re trying to work, but distractions are sooo tempting–just take a peek at personal email, or look at Facebook or Twitter for “just a minute”–and the next thing you know it’s an hour later.

A student at Columbia University in New York has taken it one step further, creating an app that blocks your own access to distractions while you work on your computer.

It’s very clever–called SelfControl. See below. Let us know what you think and if you install it–what your experience with it is.

SelfControl

Because sometimes you don’t have any.

Are your favorite websites or your emails a distraction? SelfControl is an OS X application which blocks access to mail servers or websites for a predetermined period of time. For example, you could block access to your email, Facebook, and Twitter for 90 minutes, but still have access to the rest of the web. Once started, it can not be undone by the application or by restarting the computer – you must wait for the timer to run out.

The main SelfControl page is here. Or download the application here.

SelfControl was developed by Charlie Stigler for Steve Lambert, a fellow at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center. SelfControl is free and open-source software, released under the GPL. The source code is available at Github.

Note: SelfControl (c) is not a product of, or affiliated with Simplify.

Multitasking and Decision Fatigue

Nose art from a WWII era B-29, courtesy USAF & Wikipedia Commons

There was a great article in a recent New York Times Sunday magazine that examines “decision fatigue.” As your day wears on, your brain gets tired of making decisions–so much so that the later in the day, the more likely you are making poor decisions or making decisions that would be better ones if you could wait or reset your brain. Some people just shut down and make no decisions. Depending on the urgency and circumstances, waiting could be good or bad, really bad (like deciding when to land an airplane–you just can’t sleep on it and do it tomorrow).

Very interesting is the correlation with diet–specifically how the brain metabolizes glucose. So when you get that late afternoon hunger for a chocolate bar, in part, your brain is telling you it needs a shot of glucose to keep on making decisions. See the full article here: Do You Suffer From Decision Fatigue? by John Tierney for the NY Times, Sunday, Aug. 17.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Decision fatigue helps explain why ordinarily sensible people get angry at colleagues and families, splurge on clothes, buy junk food at the supermarket and can’t resist the dealer’s offer to rustproof their new car. No matter how rational and high-minded you try to be, you can’t make decision after decision without paying a biological price. It’s different from ordinary physical fatigue — you’re not consciously aware of being tired — but you’re low on mental energy. The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either of two very different ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice. Ducking a decision often creates bigger problems in the long run, but for the moment, it eases the mental strain.”

So how does this relate to multitasking? Multitasking erodes your concentration on big decisions by “sidetracking” your brain with a thousand little decisions–click this, grab that, read an email, answer the phone–all while you are trying to get something done. Your brain never gets a rest for constant little decisions.

On the flipside, when you are trying to relax or play or do nothing (God forbid you should have some actual downtime) continuing to multitask robs your brain of the recovery period it needs. And then–what a surprise–on comes a chocolate craving. Sound familiar?

How to help yourself:

Know your body and brain. Tiredness and irritability are but two outward signals that you may be pushing your decision envelope. If you are in a minute-to-minute crisis, you may have to stick to the job at hand, but if not, be honest and brave enough to say, “You know team, we’re all fried now. Let’s take a break or sleep on this decision and approach it when we’re all fresh tomorrow morning.”

Prioritize decisions. Handle the most immediate, pressing or most important earlier in the day (if possible).

Try eating smaller balanced meals throughout the day every few hours (instead of a large breakfast, lunch and dinner) and have some simple snacks handy (go easy on fatty foods). Avoid gorging yourself to avoid the “post-lunch coma”. Eating this way keeps your blood sugar more constant during the day–you’ll likely have fewer and milder peaks and valleys of energy. By the way, that is also one dietary strategy to help manage gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and is also recommended for some diabetics.

Have other ideas? Please comment!

All tied up in knots?

Here’s a great analogy to multitasking……. This man or woman finds themselves in a room shaped and decorated like a prison cell – no windows or door – a cold concrete slab bed and the stainless steel sink/toilet but with no roof 100 feet above.  Nothing else. From the floor they see the world above where they want to be emotionally and physically (Duh!). Each day without warning the room fills with extremely hot water a bit higher each day and recedes each night but only if they fall asleep.

Some times the water is much higher and they struggle to keep above standing on the slab or sink. The day arrives where there is nothing to stand on to prevent the burning sensation and pain from the water and on that day where their feet are sizzling high above appears a knotted rope draped partially down from above leading out. They jump and fall jump and fall repeatedly grasping for the rope but it is too far out of reach because of the knots making it too short. They notice that the knots are different sizes.

  

 http://www.briterwebdesign.com/photoblog/10sep07/rope.html

Some are mangled twists of several tied all together into one huge knot. Others a three year old could untie. What a mixed-up predicament!  So they resolve that  “I’m just not going to deal with the knots”…”I can take it or get accustom to the water…it’s like a hot tub on steroids…” “I’ll just tread water and float my way out…” But they find that as the water rises each day the pain does not subside but becomes unbearable so they realize that very soon their survival depends on reaching the rope-but how? They can’t physically untie the knots-and realize there must be another way.

The next day begins-water rising making steam swirl like clouds around them. They look inward almost meditating  to control the pain and about reaching the rope and strangely the water cools slightly but still rising. Curious, they repeat their deep thought for days and the water becomes the perfect temperature for them but it rises even faster than before-so fast that as soon as they open their eyes each morning they must jump up to avoid drowning.

One day once awake they look up and see the rope is half way down to them -  still knotted – but just out of reach. They focus their attention on the lowest knot and with their concentration it seems to untie itself.  The next day they untie two knots and closer and closer the rope becomes.  The last day they have learned to untie the knots so well that the rope is in reach and they climb it to freedom.

What have you learned?

Knots are not what you think. When you multitask it’s like being in a prison cell where everyday is the same. Unless alternatives “the rope” are found from within you there is no escaping.  The many knots are your inner blocks like “pain body” points like Eckhart revealed in all of us. The knots are not multitasking pitfalls but behaviors and social conditioning that perpetuates what I call “cloud thinking.” Cloud thinking is very much your personality in the visual sense. We most all would enjoy a clear blue sky and maybe some wispy clouds in a sunrise or sunset. You can see forever on a cloudless day but add some thunderheads and it’s a completely different feeling. Take a look up sometime. How does the sky make you feel. Are you inspired by tornadoes falling out of the black torrent wall cloud. If so, then you are too a “cloud thinker” but one who is projecting hopefully the awe of nature’s power with a healthy respect for its distructive forces.  For most of us non-meterlogical thrillseekers a terrible storm evokes avoidance and worry about the unknown. When clouds cover your sky you hope they go away and when they do you feel uplifted and your spirit is free-in a sense.

http://samuelschultzart.com/

Internally “cloud thinkers” release control of their life to whatever comes that day-given that most weather reporters are wrong more than 50% of the time the “cloud thinkers”  find themselves not satisfied with many parts of each day whether work, home or personally. Here’s where the knots come into play.

Everyone has their own rope-and I’m not using the phrase …given enough rope you’ll hang yourself I do not believe that one. Your rope is made stronger with clear thought and will become less knotted has you find ways to see how well you become more adaptive and calm when you focus on what’s right in front of you be it work or home or personal aspects.

The better you are at unraveling the knots and then changing your inner reactions to the many multitasking  stresses presented each day -Clouds- will give you presence-in the present. Life is wasted on “shoulda, coulda, woulda’s so don’t allow them to distract you from the now-the project-your wife-your family-yourself.  How do you make your rope your escape route?

Take back your attention  to avoid the pitfall of coping strategies to multitasking and see the rewards of …doing one thing, do it very well then move on…one of my favorite quotes ….will untie many of your knots and bring blue sky.

Losing Your Connections

A couple of weeks ago, NY Times writer David Carr mused on his visit to the SXSW music festival in Austin.

Austin Texas, Convention Center at night, 2011 by Ed Schipul, courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

I was struck by the contradiction of people converging on a geographic location to be connected to and experience live music, while at the same time using social media (and especially smart phones) to distance themselves from the event (and people) at hand.

It seems ironic to me that it’s just this sort of rudeness — being snubbed by the “cool kids” — that motivated shy people and geeks to get into techonology and social media in the first place.

This article started me thinking about the need for highly connected people to begin practicing direct social arts — like conversation–DIRECTLY.

I also thought we should all consider taking two-day BlackBerry holidays on the weekend. If enough people joined in, maybe we could get a National No Smartphone Weekend together. 

Anybody doing that already? What do you think?  

“Keep Your Thumbs Still When I’m Talking to You”

in the New York Times

By DAVID CARR

Published: April 15, 2011

YOU are at a party and the person in front of you is not really listening to you. Yes, she is murmuring occasional assent to your remarks, or nodding at appropriate junctures, but for the most part she is looking beyond you, scanning in search of something or someone more compelling.

Here’s the funny part: If she is looking over your shoulder at a room full of potentially more interesting people, she is ill-mannered. If, however, she is not looking over your shoulder, but into a smartphone in her hand, she is not only well within modern social norms, but is also a wired, well-put-together person.

Add one more achievement to the digital revolution: It has made it fashionable to be rude. (…)

Train Your Brain?

Last week a new study by researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign published a study in The Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. It had an interesting observation about how exercise can help you focus by “training your brain” to process information by rapid multitasking — but it also had a digression dealing with distraction.  So on the one hand, multitasking may help you perform by acclimating your brain to make rapid decisions, but in the real world, you still increase your risk of an accident if you cross the street and talk on your cell phone at the same time.

Picture of a human brain rendered with an fMRI scanner, courtesy NASA

See a full article in the NY Times at http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/how-sports-may-focus-the-brain/. Here are relevant excerpts.

(…)  The rest of the volunteers were healthy young collegians but not athletes, from a variety of academic departments.

All showed up at various times to a specially appointed lab, where a manual treadmill was situated amid three 10-foot-square video screens. One screen stood in front of the treadmill, with the others at either side. Donning goggles that gave the video images on the screens depth and verisimilitude, the students were soon immersed in a busy virtual cityscape.

When the immersive video began, the students found themselves plopped into an alley between buildings. From there, they were instructed to walk toward a busy street and, once they’d arrived, gauge oncoming traffic. The virtual cars whizzed by in both directions at daunting speeds, between 40 and 55 miles per hour.

When it felt safe, the students were to cross the road. They were told to walk, not run, but had a limit of 30 seconds from the time they left the alley. In some attempts, they had no distractions. In others, they listened to music through headphones or, emulating a common campus practice, chatted on a cellphone with a friend. Each volunteer attempted 96 crossings.

Success varied. “Over all, there was an 85 percent completion rate,” in which students made it to the other side of the road without incident, said Laura Chaddock, a graduate student at the university and lead author of the study. Failure meant impact — thankfully virtual.

(…)

One caveat, though: keep cellphones pocketed. Listening to music didn’t increase the number of accidents, but chatting on a phone did, even for athletes. No amount of sports training, Ms. Chaddock said, seems likely to make walking and talking in traffic a wise move.

Multitasking Hinders Healing

How does healing your body relate to multitasking?  It serves to reinforce the absolute truth that multitasking serves no good purpose or adds any value in our lives.

Let’s think for a bit about what happens when you get sick or hurt and try to continue to be the dynamo-of-the-office from home.  Serious health interventions like surgery remove us physically from the corporate world.  When you’re seriously ill, healing and reestablishing or maintaining the most basic life activities are the real goal, and in many cases the only goal.  Illness forces you step back a bit further.

Why is it that in the technologically advanced western world we live, we still work too much?  There is not an option to have surgery on crushed vertebrae while contributing on that status-updated, pulse-check weekly conference call.  Why?  It’s ridiculous to even consider.  That’s why.

We schedule time off for the surgery and are most likely to spend some time flat on our backs, possibly in a chemically induce pseudo-coma.  And yet we still try to figure out how quickly we can get out of that place, so that we can get back to the office.

Here I sit typing away that this blog wearing what my sons affectionately call “Dad’s Darth Vader necklace” which in reality is a bone growth stimulator to speed the repair of fused bones from my recent neck neurosurgery.  Dare say I’m multitasking?  No.

Multitasking rears its ugly head in the cognitive mind only.  The stimulator does not affect how I think, but It would surely stop functioning if I decided to wear it while showering—to multitask my healing and hygiene at the same time.  Why don’t I hop in the shower?  It’s ridiculous to even consider!  And that’s the point.

Just take a minute to look back on all those colds, flu, migraines, surgeries where your body tells you: “Nope I’m staying in bed and to hell with all the crap you have on your plate at the office!”  That is our natural self-preservation, our automatic pilots, kicking in trying desperately to overcome the work imperative.

Know what?  Self-preservation often wins, as it should.  You and I both know that is the truth.  Yes, some courageously stupid folks will head into the office anyway and to accomplish what (?) with a 104-degree fever.

I’m waiting…..  waiting to hear those super hero dynamo stories of how, despite a 104-degree fever and vomiting, brilliance was displayed on day-to-day tasks or the mega presentation that landed the biggest contract ever in the history of time since it’s been recorded. I’m still waiting……..

The truth is those don’t often happen in the real world.  The truth is those who struggle into the office when they are ill then struggle in the office.  They aren’t productive.  They spread disease.  Sure, everyone around them notices, but is the basic reaction is likely “Boy, he should have stayed home, he looks/sounds awful,” instead of  “Boy, I sure am glad that he came to work feeling like crap—our project is SAVED!”

The lesson: Stay home and uni-task by resting and already overworked body and mind.

Let’s say you actually stay home or take time away from your job.  What happens to you?  You get to feeling better.  Duh!

In my case, I have been off work almost a month now, and because I have not let multitasking creep into my head, I have exceeded my recovery goals because I’m focused on one thing: my recovery.

Listen to your body – it’s the only one you got.

Distracted Pedestrians as Bad as Distracted Drivers?

We return to our regularly scheduled programming with this article from The New York Times. I guess you could make the case  that distracted pedestrians most likely only pose a danger to themselves, while distracted drivers pose a danger to many others with whom they share the roads. But then again, no one wants to hit you if you walk into oncoming traffic.

Self Test: Have you ever stumbled, fallen or had any other kind of accident as a result of focus on texting,  smartphone or mobile phone use? Let us know about it in comments!

States’ Lawmakers Turn Attention to the Dangers of Distracted Pedestrians
By SUSAN SAULNY and MATT RICHTEL
Published: January 25, 2011

Many joggers don earbuds and listen to music to distract themselves from the rigors of running. But might the Black Eyed Peas or Rihanna distract them so much that they jog into traffic?

Richard Perry/The New York Times

New York State is considering a ban on the use of electronic devices while crossing streets. Above, a jogger in New York City.

Enlarge This Image

Stephanie Kuykendal for The New York Times

A man listened to headphones as he ran along the National Mall in Washington.

That is the theory of several lawmakers pushing the latest generation of legislation dealing with how devices like iPods and cellphones affect traffic safety. The ubiquity of interactive devices has propelled the science of distraction — and now efforts to legislate against it — out of the car and into the exercise routine.

In New York, a bill is pending in the legislature’s transportation committee that would ban the use of mobile phones, iPods or other electronic devices while crossing streets — runners and other exercisers included. Legislation pending in Oregon would restrict bicyclists from using mobile phones and music players, and a Virginia bill would keep such riders from using a “hand-held communication device.”

In California, State Senator Joe Simitian, who led a successful fight to ban motorists from sending text messages and using hand-held phones, has reintroduced a bill that failed last year to fine bicyclists $20 for similar multitasking.

“The big thing has been distracted driving, but now it’s moving into other ways technology can distract you, into everyday things,” said Anne Teigen, a policy specialist for the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks legislative developments.

Exercising in Central Park on Tuesday, Marie Wickham, 56, said she understood what all the fuss was about: “They’re zigging, they’re zagging, they don’t know what’s around them. It can definitely be dangerous.”

But Ms. Wickham added that she would be opposed to any ban of such devices. “I think it’s an infringement on personal rights,” she said. “At some point, we need to take responsibility for our own stupidity.”

(more)

See the full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/us/26runners.html?_r=1

Andrew Keh, Ian Lovett and Evin Demirel contributed reporting.

Is Blogging Over?

Interesting article in Crain’s Chicago Business. Is the future of blogging written already?

Bloggers quitting what they call a demanding task with few rewards

By: Lisa Bertagnoli January 17, 2011

Jim Harbison launched a blog thinking it would be a showcase for his love of mid-century-inspired art and design—and maybe spawn a book deal or guest editorship somewhere.

“I wanted to participate in a world I didn’t feel I had entrée to in other ways,” says Mr. Harbison, 45, director of production at a Lincoln-wood-based publishing company.

He founded Modern Craft in 2007 and spent seven to 10 hours a week on the blog. It received 800 to 1,500 views per post, a respectable number for an independent blog. But it launched the career not of Mr. Harbison, but of the artists he featured. While they signed deals with Target, Urban Outfitters and Chronicle Books, he got virtually nothing, save for a spread featuring him and his mid-century Evanston home in ReadyMade magazine.

“I could see it happening, but it wasn’t happening for me,” Mr. Harbison says.

Frustrated, he quit blogging late in 2009 to develop his own line of textiles and canvas bags, which will launch in April.

There are about 31 million blogs in the United States, a number expected to swell to 34 million by the end of this year. But Mr. Harbison is part of a small but growing trend of blog quitters. Last year, the number of blogging teens and adults ages 18 to 33 declined, in the first reported drop in blogging, according to Pew Research Center data.

Some have simply switched to another blog-like medium, say, Twitter or Facebook. Others have faced unpleasant facts about blogging. It’s cheap to do but usually doesn’t pay. Having a platform may be fun at first, but building a following takes much more work than simply typing and posting.

And millions of them go virtually unnoticed, despite the occasional breakout sensation like the humorous “Stuff White People Like” and the Julia Child-inspired “The Julie/Julia Project.”

(more)

See the full article at http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20110115/ISSUE03/301159994/bye-bye-bloggers#axzz1BOcoKSaK

© 2011 by Crain Communications Inc.

Exercise Body, Rest Brain

We know this one intuitively– or do we?–your brain needs a rest and you need some exercise!  Your brain need a rest WHILE you exercise.  Another one of a great series of articles by Matt Ritchel for The New York Times:

Your Brain on Computers
Digital Devices Deprive Brain of Needed Downtime

(c) Jim Wilson/The New York Times

By MATT RICHTEL
Published: August 24, 2010

The technology makes the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive. But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas.

See the full article at:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/technology/25brain.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all