Task Management

Task Switching

Throughout your life you might have heard the term multitasking. However, it probably isn't exactly what you think it is. It is doing multiple tasks at once, however it is only multitasking when they're related to the same outcome. The last part of that explanation is key "related to the same outcome". Here's an example:

Driving your car requires multitasking. The outcome is that you want to safely drive to a destination, along the way you'll have to observe the cars around you, notice the traffic signs and lights, look in your mirrors, check your speed, etc. Since all these tasks help satisfy the outcome this would be an example of multitasking.

So then what is Task Switching? Task Switching is doing multiple different tasks that aren’t directly related to the same outcome. The problem is that your attention is being diverted between multiple tasks. Here's an example:

You check an email and start reading it, half way through you check your facebook page for news, then come back to the email. These two tasks have unrelated outcomes, it slows your ability to accomplish both. There is a penalty to task switching which is the amount of time it takes to reengage with the prior task. Imagine it this way, you open the email and read what your boss has sent you, you've analyzed what they're asking for and are crafting a professional reply and have just started typing when the facebook notification goes off. You switch tasks to check Facebook, but you see it's not that important after a scroll through and close the app and return to your email after 30 seconds. It will now take you time to reengage in the email, you'll have to remember what your boss had said, or reread it, you'll have to remember why you started your response the way you did and where you were going, once you figure that all out that will have cost you maybe 2 minutes of time. The time penalty to reengage will vary depending on the task, but it doesn't take much for that time penalty to add up. Our brain can handle multitasking. Our brain does not do so well with task switching and there is a real cost to it.

Note: Regarding the Time Penalty, Research shows that it takes on average 25 minutes to fully return to a task that we get distracted from.

Grouping Like Tasks

We know that it takes your brain time to switch tasks, so how can we structure our brains to better accommodate this?

One of the ways is to "group like tasks" together. This means that you should group together tasks that are similar in nature and in outcome together to minimize the task switching penalty.

Here's an example:

For work I have approximately 1 hours worth of reading to do and approximately 1 hour worth of emails to do, what is the best structure to complete both tasks?

  1. 15 minutes of reading, 15 minutes of emails, alternating till complete.
  2. 30 minutes reading, 30 minutes of emails, 30 minutes of reading, 30 minutes of emails.
  3. 1 hour of reading and 1 hour of emails.

As you might have guessed the 3rd option is the best. It is the option that groups like tasks together the best and therefore requires less task switching. Even though in this example the other options still totaled 2 hours worth of work, in reality these work tasks would have taken even longer to complete because of the task switching involved.

Grouping like tasks can be expanded into groups with similar outcomes. For instance emails could be expanded into the group of communication and therefore it would also be appropriate to group returning phone calls into that group. This group would have the same goal of responding to work communications and therefore still have use in minimizing task switching. The more accurate you get at grouping tasks the more efficient you can be with your time. This strategy is useful for studying and work, before you start your studying or work first group like tasks and proceed in that order as best as possible. This can save you precious minutes and even hours in wasted task switching.

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