Better Than Multitasking

Once I asked my students at USC if they’d like to know a way that they could do only 20% of the things they have to do in their lives and still get 80% productivity.

The room fell silent until one student, feeling sorry for the professor, said “If you want to”.

Multitasking distracts us and forces us to sacrifice the quality of our attention but people refuse to give it up in our fast paced digital world.

And it also never ends meaning you never run out of things to do simultaneously.

Recently, a group of researchers at the University of Washington studied the effects of meditation training on multitasking.  According to a New York Times article, they formed one group of human resource professionals to do the simultaneous planning they were accustomed to doing.  They were given 20 minutes to complete their tasks.

Then they were divided into three groups – one for an 8-week meditation course immediately, another group took it later not initially and the third took an 8-week course in body relaxation.

Then, back to the original 20-minute multitasking test.

According to the article, “The only participants to show improvement were those who had received mindfulness training.  Not only did they report fewer negative emotions at the end of the assignment, but their ability to concentrate improved significantly”.

Being in the “now” is beneficial in lots of ways to significantly improving the future.

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