The Multitasking Myth & Why People Are Switching Jobs

Think you’re a multitasking master? Think again. This episode reveals the hidden cost of multitasking on your brain and productivity. Learn why every attention switch drains your focus, leaving you exhausted without getting much done—and what you can do about it.

We also tackle the growing trend of job switching: why people leave jobs they love because of bad bosses, and what you should consider before making a move. Plus, we dive into the debate over remote work, its impact on workplace culture, and how new generations are adjusting (or struggling) as they enter the workforce.

Get ready for a deep dive into what’s really going on in today’s workplace.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Truth About Multitasking
• 1:38 Why Multitasking Kills Productivity
• 5:16 Industries That Reward Deep Work
• 9:04 Why People Leave Jobs They Love
• 12:24 Remote Work vs. In-Office Culture
• 16:00 Adapting to the Modern Workforce
• 18:40 Challenges for New Graduates Entering Work

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

When people think they're multitasking, they're really doing one thing. With rapid shifts and attention. So if I'm on my phone answering an email, talking to somebody in the hallway. I'm not doing all three of those at once. I'm focused on email. I do a rapid shift in attention to the person in my here. Rapid shift in attention to the person who's at the door. Back forth. Back and forth. All of which takes our level of concentration to a more shallow level of concentration. We don't have the deep level of concentrate. And there's a there's a switching cost. Every time you switch attention, it it decreases the quality of your thinking. That creates fatigue in the brain. And we've all had that experience where we've shifted so many times in the day. At the end of the day, we don't feel like we got anything done and we're exhausted.

Speaker 2: 1:05

Today, we're talking about multitasking as our first question. You have stated before that we are not designed to work. That way as far as multitasking. But many people feel they're particularly good at multitasking. So how is it a net detriment, in your opinion? Productivity.

Speaker 1: 1:24

Well, we'll start with, with the with the portion of people who think they're good at multitasking. Now our brains do multitask, but they multitask with activities that occur in different regions of the brain. So we all we all have been driving and listening to the radio. We've all been driving and having a conversation with somebody in the car. Almost all of us can walk and chew gum at the same time because they're using different parts of the brain. So if if we think about, looking around at our and our environment, like looking at the landscape that uses and I'm touching the back of my head because that's the occipital lobe, that's the part of the brain that that manages vision, which we never think about the parts a little right around our ears, like, this is the part that does rhythm in music, and this is the part that does speech, okay. We don't think about those things. So, so our brain is multitasking all the time. But when we're talking about the multitasking most people are talking about, they're talking about I'm on the phone. I'm answering an email and somebody comes to my office door and I'm kind of directing traffic at my office door. Every one of those activities involves the same part of the brain, which is called the prefrontal cortex.

Speaker 2: 3:04

And okay.

Speaker 1: 3:06

Frontal cortex means the part on the front of your head. Prefrontal means before the part on the front of your head. So it's in front of the front of your head. And it's all in this area right here. That part of the brain can really only do one thing at a time. When people think they're multitasking, they're really doing one thing with rapid shifts in attention. So if I'm on my phone, answering an email, talking to somebody in the hallway, I'm not doing all three of those at once. I'm focused on the email. I do a rapid shift in attention to the person in my ear, rapid shift in attention to the person who's at the door. Back forth. Back forth. All of which takes our level of concentration to a more shallow level of concentration. We don't have a deep level of concentration. So our most productive work gets done when we don't have any distractions. But we have shallow water levels of concentration. And there's a there's a switching cost. Every time you switch attention, it it decreases the quality of your thinking. You can watch TV and knit at the same time because they're using different parts of the brain. And you can miss a lot of television while you're counting your stitches. Right.

Speaker 2: 4:42

Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1: 4:43

So you you don't have to be fully attentive, but if you're concentrating on writing a document or going through an Excel spreadsheet and analyzing data, you can't switch without there being a cost to concentration that creates fatigue in the brain. And we've all had that experience where we've shifted so many times in the day. At the end of the day, we don't feel like we got anything done and we're exhausted. That's the cost of multitasking. And it's why at the beginning of the day, we can resolve something in 20 minutes at the end of the day, because our brain is fatigued. It could take us an hour to do the same task.

Speaker 2: 5:30

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I would you say that there are certain industries where it's easier to multitask in certain industries where it's not.

Speaker 1: 5:38

There are certain industries that reward multitasking, and there are certain office environments and certain job types where collaborate, live. Conversation improves the idea. So let's say in in marketing, if you're if you're if you're doing idea generation in a marketing department, lots of collaboration, lots of interruption, all of those things make sense. If we're talking about parts of the workforce that are doing very what I call close work, detail oriented work that requires requires intense concentration. So the things that come to mind immediately are, accounting. Those things require close concentration. Multitasking doesn't work that well. Then part of getting past that is becoming aware. When your attention and concentration is waning and having realistic expectations on yourself. None of us are any good at multitasking. There is a common conception that women are better than men at multitasking, which to which my answer is, well, we all know men suck at multitasking, so women do better than suck. So you may be a little better, but you're really not that good at it. As we look at outcome research, women, maybe ever so slightly better, but they're still pretty awful at it. So? So it isn't just the men, it's everybody. Oh, I think people will. Will? I mean, people argue with me all the time. I know that's not true. And it's like, well, who are you comparing yourself to? I mean, you put a man in a room with a television. He can't do anything else. There's a lot of interest in this area in, in, in terms of attention and because of our technology, is is throwing so many decisions at us every day.

Speaker 2: 7:45

Yeah. And I mean even younger and younger ages. Right. We start diagnosing, attention deficit disorders and things like that.

Speaker 1: 7:53

I think there's I think there's a legitimate question in that diagnosis. Is that is that a diagnosis that was under utilized in the past, or have there been changes in our environments that have increased the likelihood that those symptoms would come up? In other words, do we have environmentally induced attention deficit problems or do we have normal? And it's it's it's sex related. Do we have normal boy behavior being diagnosed as a pathology when we we know boys tend to be more fidgety and they tend to like to play outside and they tend to be a little bit more defiant. I think those are legitimate questions that we can have debates on, and I I'm happy to have that debate.

Speaker 2: 8:49

There was an article that I referenced recently about your American switching job lately, as the labor market slows down a little bit. What what do you think is driving this? And do you have a criteria that people should look at or evaluate before they switch jobs?

Speaker 1: 9:04

Why do people switch jobs? There's there's an old truism that I think is absolutely accurate, that you take a job for the job. You leave a job because of the boss. And I have seen over and over again people who like their company, like their work, hate their boss, and they will start looking for another job. One of my dear friends was a 33 year employee with a large company, and everybody has their products. And probably 3 or 4 times in his career, he talked to me about leaving his job. And he loved his job. He loved his company. Every time it was a boss. And fortunately for him, he waited it out until the the the organization reorg. They did a reorganization and that boss was let go and then he he came to life again. And I see this over and over with people who were employed, that they like, they liked their job, they liked the people they work with. But their boss is an idiot. And so there's there's a tremendous opportunity for leadership development if bosses will realize that they have one of the most important influences on worker workplace satisfaction. So we'll go to the Gallup survey of workplace engagement. And these aren't the exact numbers, but they're pretty close 20% of and this this has been the same for as I think as long as they've been doing the survey, about 20% of the workplace population is either engaged or actively engaged. Approximately 60% are kind of along for the ride and 20% are disengaged or actively disengaged. I mean, these people take this in years, and I believe those actively disengaged people have become demoralized, largely because of idiot bosses. It's amazing that we're as productive as we are with really just 20% of the workplace population getting things done.

Speaker 2: 11:31

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:32

All of which to say, there's 80% of our workforce could improve their workplace engagement. I would say largely from the behavior of their boss. If their boss was a good boss, and we talked about that another day, they could become more engaged. Not all of them, but many of them. When I look at companies, are they pursuing profits, like putting nitrous oxide into an engine, into a fuel line, or are they pursuing profits in a sustainable way that is going to allow them to be productive and profitable for the long term? And those are two different approaches, both profit centered. One long term, one very short term. Great bosses will leave the short term to go to the long term.

Speaker 2: 12:24

It appears that the battle for remote work is nearing its end a little bit, especially in certain companies. We saw recently that Patagonia has ordered all its workers to return to the office and cease working remotely. We've seen it in big tech companies recently. More and more people are being pushed back into the office. In your opinion, is this a good thing for workplace culture? And, what are their residual effects from the pandemic do you think will fall after this goes?

Speaker 1: 12:55

Well, I think, for some kinds of work, remote work works very well. So the kind of work that's done in a solitary way that requires few interruptions, but it requires a person with high conscientiousness. And this is a quality, that that's measurable in a pre-employment interview, in a pre-employment test. But but a person's level of conscientious ness, diligence, determination, attention to detail, drive to achieve all of those qualities. If a person has that and it's a fairly stable quality, they will probably do okay working on their own if they're probably also a little bit introverted, if they're extroverted, they're kind of want that, that interpersonal stimulation. But if you get some kind of interpreted and super conscientious doing solitary, concentrated work, they're going to do fine on their own. And they usually are in meetings wondering why they're there, because the meetings are so stupid. And so those people will probably continue on being okay with remote work. But any job that requires close collaboration, lots and lots of feedback loops for check in. I think we're going to see those people come increasingly back to work. There's a lot there's a lot gained in productivity that's unrelated to the work human beings for the last 10,000 years have been social animals. We travel in packs, we travel in, and human beings are biologically wired for touch and proximity to other human beings. So there's a chemical called oxytocin that's released when when mothers give birth, when they're nursing their kids, that makes us feel connected to one another. And it's not just mothers in those periods of time. It's all human beings. Anytime we shake someone's hand, pat them on the shoulder. All of which I think is acceptable in the workplace. All of that, gives everybody a little oxytocin, which makes us feel more connected. And the more connected we feel to the people around us, the more we are connected toward a mutual goal. And if we look at teams that function well together, they function a lot like, Like a jam band. If you've ever seen a band that that does improvizational music and it goes from one player to the other. After lots of practice in rehearsal, these bands can play together and kind of know who's going to do what next, and it creates a beautiful outcome. And we also see human beings in groups work in sync, wins with one another, and we see it in marching bands. For example, if you've ever watched a marching band, they all are working together to create patterns. And this marching together, the singing together, this acting in unison creates a thing called entrainment, and it makes everyone feel connected to a larger whole. And with the people around them. So okay.

Speaker 2: 16:42

So this.

Speaker 1: 16:42

Is built to to want to be around and do the same activities with others. So, so what was intended to be an illness preventative? I'll just say it that to separate people, I think it has in fact created more problems. Humans and and I love this technology. I love that that I can interact with people via a video conference. And and I'm glad we have this technology. And human beings are born to be with each other. So I think we're going to see people coming back. And there's a lot to be learned by employees when they're having idle conversation with coworkers, not just learn about what's happening in the work or transferring knowledge, but also building those relationships so that you care about what happens to the other person. Yes. And you ask, what's going to happen in the future? We have about 2 or 3 years of new employees, new workers who either spent their last year or two in college or in high school remote. Then they go to a workplace that's remote. All they've known about work and learning, the vast majority of it has been by themselves. And so these are people who are probably going to have some difficulty transitioning to a full time at work environment, not because there's anything wrong with them, but they've just never had any other experience. And they're going to have to re learn how work goes.

Speaker 2: 18:26

So what would you say to those kids then, who are just entering the workforce after remote work and learning is all they've known?

Speaker 1: 18:33

Well, unfortunately, they've been taught by their environment a falsehood about human, how human beings work and ultimately some of them will not be able to make that transition, which is one of the long term costs of locking down our our society. I think most of them, most of them will be able to turn the corner. They'll be able to to make that transition. But they've been taught a falsehood about how human beings have worked for the last 10,000 years and probably will.

Speaker 2: 19:13

Yeah. Well, enough. We're good bosses coming, right?

Speaker 1: 19:16

Yes. A good boss can be a life transforming person. Maybe.