How To Get 3 Hours Back in Your Day
Information technology makes us more productive than past generations, yet we work longer hours. The average US worker with only one job now works 46 hours a week. If we can produce more in less time, why are we working longer hours now than we were 20 years ago?
I think the answer can be found by looking at how we work.
What Actually Happens at Work
A pair of studies in the Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery looked at how knowledge workers work in an office setting. What they found was very little time spent on any one task.
On the low-end, managers spent on average a little over a minute on a given task before either being interrupted or switching to another task. On the high-end software developers spent up to six minutes on average working on a task, which still isn’t very long when you think about the nature of their work.
One of the studies also examined how much time workers spent collectively on the sub-tasks that go into completing typical work tasks like responding to an email or working on a client file. The authors called all of the related work like researching the answer, attaching a file, and writing the email a “work sphere.” The average time spent on each work sphere was twelve minutes before switching to an unrelated task or another work sphere.
Those figures may seem extreme at first, but I don’t think they are far from the truth. If you doubt that, pick an hour at work without meetings and then keep track of the number of times you’re interrupted or switch from one software program to another. Looking up data in a database and then putting it into an email or document counts as a switch. That may seem extreme, but as we will soon see it isn’t.
The number of times that you switch tasks or restart tasks after an interruption will probably surprise you.
Let’s be generous and say the average person is immune to mental fatigue and works non-stop for seven out of eight hours in a given work day. If we only count switching between work spheres not sub-tasks as task switching, then the average person switches tasks 35 times in an eight-hour work day.
That is actually a very conservative estimate. Remember, eight hours is less than the average work day, and we didn’t count sub-tasks. It is safe to assume that when we factor in sub-tasks and breaks (which most people take at least to use the restroom) that the average person switches tasks more than 100 times a day. That is a lot of task switching in a given work day.
It comes with a high productivity cost.
The High Cost of Task Switching
From a research perspective, there are actually two types of multi-tasking. Attempting to do two things simultaneously is called dual-tasking by researchers. Dual-tasking performance is typically only possible for relatively simple things like talking on the phone while folding laundry. Dual-tasking consistently leads to slower task performance and higher error rates for most tasks.
There is some evidence that an estimated 2% of the population may be able to multi-task without an increase in errors or decrease in task speed. But the odds are good that doesn’t describe anyone reading this article. A University of Utah study found that the people most likely to believe they are good at multi-task are actually the worst at multi-tasking. If you want to test your ability after reading this, you can try the “super-tasker” test.
True dual-tasking is actually infrequent at work because most work tasks require too much thinking to be able to perform two tasks simultaneously. You may think you can write an email and talk on the phone at the same time, but you can’t actually do that. You’re actually shifting your attention back-and-forth between tasks. Moving from one task to another task is called task switching by researchers. Task switching is the other type of multi-tasking studied by researchers.
For the majority of us, task switching not dual tasking is the productivity sapper at work.
The prevailing theory about the way brain switches tasks is broken down into three parts. First, your brain’s prefrontal cortex decides to shift your attention to another task. How that decision is made could easily be the subject of its own article. You then visually recognize the new task, which serves as a cue to reference a set of rules you may have developed to guide task execution. You then execute the task. Neural imaging studies indicate that task switching follows exactly that process and that task switching taxes our brain more than performing similar tasks back-to-back.
In practice, it looks something like this for many people at work. You’re writing a presentation draft in Word or a Google Doc. An email notification comes across your screen. You see the notification and decide to pull up your inbox. As the inbox comes onto your screen, you cue up your rules for responding to email. You identify the new message, read it, and decide whether or not to respond.
When we switch between tasks, there is a lag time between ending one task and starting another. Researchers call the lag time the switch cost. It can be as short as half a second or less for very simple tasks. If the task we are switching to is unfamiliar or complicated, the lag time increases. For particularly complex tasks you also have to “load” information into your working memory, which is the short-term memory you use to complete tasks. This is why it can take so long to get back on-track after being interrupted in the middle of writing a report or coding a new feature.
The cost of task switching adds up over the course of a work day. Professor David Meyer, one of the foremost researchers on task switching, estimates that task switching can cost us up to 40% of our daily productivity. So in an eight-hour work day, task switching could cost you over three hours in lost productivity.
The average worker switches tasks over 100 times in a given work day. That take us a long way toward understanding why we’re working longer even though we have tools that make us more productive.
Why We Task Switch
Task switching is frequent for two reasons. First, we get interrupted throughout the course of our work day. Some interruptions are legitimate like responding to an urgent request, but many are not. Open plan offices are particularly likely to encourage interruptions because it is very easy to turn to the person to your right to ask a question. Getting someone’s attention in an open office is low friction and seems harmless because most of us don’t understand the productivity costs of a quick conversation. If you’ve ever worked in an open office, you know how frequently that happens each day.
Text messages, email alerts, and Slack notifications can also divert your attention throughout the day.
The second reason task switching is frequent at work has more to do with the individual than the environment. Research identifies two distinct types of people that multi-task consistently primarily by task switching.
People with less short-term memory (working memory) capacity multi-task at higher rates than the average person. Researchers believe they do that because they have a hard time ignoring distractions. People in this group also typically have other challenges related to executive function, which is the umbrella term for the collection of processes in your brain that decide what to pay attention to, develop short/long-term plans, and manage task execution.
Highly goal-directed people, commonly called Type A, are also much more likely to multi-task than the average person. Type A individuals are more likely to be satisfied at work if the environment encourages task switching. They find multi-tasking fulfilling because it creates the perception that they are making progress toward multiple goals at the same time.
Even though we are actually less productive when we multi-task it doesn’t appear that way to us, which is why we continue to do it.
How to Get 3 Hours Back Each Day
For many of us, multi-tasking is a habit. The good news is that we can reduce the number of times we multi-task with four simple steps.
The easiest place to start is to limit electronic disruptions. I disable email alerts, Slack notifications, and anything else on my computer that could disrupt the flow when I’m working. I also keep my phone permanently in “do not disturb” mode. If something is urgent, people can still reach me by calling me. I haven’t missed anything important yet, and I’ve done this for over three years now.
Unless you’re a trauma surgeon, the odds are good that any email you receive can wait twenty-five minutes. If you’re a trauma surgeon, you’re not getting called into work over email in the first place.
Second, start batching similar or related work together. Batches are more efficient because they evoke the same mental rule set for each task, which eliminates or reduces the switching cost between tasks.
Task switching is a silent thief. It quietly steals productive time, which you make up by working longer hours.
The easiest way to start batching is to plan it the night before, which can be done in ten minutes or less. I have two rules for batching tasks. If the task is complex like writing a report or doing financial analysis, I try to block out longer periods of time to do all of the related tasks for the project together. This keeps important information for the project “loaded” in my short-term memory and drastically reduces switching costs, which in turn gets the project done faster.
That strategy is very effective. Right now in addition to researching and writing articles for this site, I’m starting a business, consulting for two economic development groups, and managing due diligence for an angel investment group. Doing related work in batches makes me much more productive and that allows me to keep everything on-track.
After I batch complex, related work together, I then batch simple work that uses the same rule set together. For instance, I will set aside twenty-five minutes a day or more to respond to email.
Third, work in twenty-five to thirty-minute bursts to help maintain focus and attention. If you group work into relatively short intervals, it is much easier to fight the urge to switch tasks. You will be surprised at how much you can accomplish in a twenty-five to thirty-minute window by simply sticking to the same project or set of tasks.
I adopted elements of the Pomodoro Method years ago for that reason. I don’t recommend creating an hour-by-hour plan for your workday. I’ve found success by coming into each day with three priorities for the day along with tasks or “to do’s” batched together that align with the priorities. That gives me a functional plan for the day along with the flexibility to adapt throughout the day.
Finally, track your progress toward goals. Take a few minutes to honestly list everything you completed in your last full work week. One of the reasons many of us task switch is because we believe that it is more productive than doing one task at a time. After you’ve spent two weeks consciously trying to reduce task switching, list everything you completed in the second week. Compare the results from the work week under your old work style to your new work style. If you make an honest effort to reduce task switching, the results from your new work style will be wearing a title belt that says “world champion.”
Task switching is a silent thief. It quietly steals productive time, which you make up by working longer hours. It takes time away from your family, friends, and hobbies. You can get that time back by making a few small changes that pay big dividends.
Footnotes:
1. Saad, Lydia. “The 40 Hour Work Week Is Actually Longer– by Seven Hours”
2. Gonzalez, Victor M. and Gloria Mark “Constant, Constant, Multi-Tasking Craziness: Managing Multiple Working Spheres.” Association for Computing Machinery April 2004 113–120
Meyer, Andre N.; Fritz, Thomsas; Murphy, Gail C., Zimmerman, Thomas. “Software Developers Perceptions of Productivity” Association for Computing Machinery November 2014 19–29
3. Monsell, Stephen and Jon Driver Control of Cognitive Processes Attention and Performance XVIII Boston: Bradford 2000.
4. Sanbonmatsu, David M., David L. Strayer, Nathan Medeiros-Ward, and Jason M. Watson. “Who Multi-Tasks and Why? Multi-Tasking Ability, Perceived Multi-Tasking Ability, Impulsivity, and Sensation Seeking” PLOS One January 23, 2013
5. Ling, Li., Meng Wang, Jing-Qian Zhao, and Noa Fogelson “Neural Mechanisms Underlying the Cost of Task Switching: An ERP Study” PLOS One July 30, 2012
6. Spector, Amos and Irving Biederman “Mental Set and Mental Shift Revisited” The American Journal of Psychology Vol. 89, No. 4 (Dec., 1976), pp. 669–679
Rubenstein, Joshua., David Meyer, and Jeffrey Evans. “Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching” Journal of Experimental Psychology 2001 Vol. 27 pgs. 763–797
7. Ratey, John J. A User’s Guide to the Human Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theatres of the Brain New York: Vintage Books 2002
8. Multitasking: Switching Costs
9. Sanbonmatsu, David M., David L. Strayer, Nathan Medeiros-Ward, and Jason M. Watson. “Who Multi-Tasks and Why? Multi-Tasking Ability, Perceived Multi-Tasking Ability, Impulsivity, and Sensation Seeking” PLOS One January 23, 2013
