Separating the Wheat From Chaff: Can We Focus on What’s Really Important?

I frequently comment that I can’t multitask. And yet I often find myself doing just that.

I frequently talk to clients on the phone while emailing others while fielding a barrage of Google Chat questions from my employees. When you have to juggle so many balls – handling clients, hunting for new ones, taking care of employees and family – sometimes your brain just sort of gets stuck in a groove and you find yourself spinning your wheels without really getting anywhere.

A few weeks ago, right after barely emerging from one of the most hectic weeks I’ve ever had, I wrote a post about how important it is to find that illusive work-life balance and how our ever-present mobile devices make it increasingly difficult to abandon the cares of the office even for a couple of hours.  To reinforce my argument, a recent post from the Harvard Business Review goes further, raising the issue of whether all of the whirlwind activity we engage in simultaneously is actually helping us meet our goals in a timely fashion.

HBR blogger Greg McKeown argues that it isn’t, and I agree with him. I call this the confusing activity with achievement syndrome.  McKeown also suggests that narrowing our focus instead of trying to do everything at once will help us get each of the things we’re trying to accomplish done better and more quickly.

And he certainly has the data to back up his argument. In 2009, researchers at Stanford found that heavy media multitaskers are more susceptible to distraction by irrelevant stimuli. On top of that, they also have a reduced ability to switch tasks easily.

Of course, this information can also be arrived at via plain old common sense. The more things we do at the same time, the worse we do each thing.

In his post, McKeown links to another HBR piece, this one about Steve Jobs and how the late Apple co-founder pulled the then-moribund company from the brink of bankruptcy in 1997 by jettisoning most of the products the company was making. Some of those products were bringing in profits, but Jobs, famous for his devotion to simplicity, chose to focus on just four product lines. That’s it.

And we all know how that one worked out for Apple, don’t we?

I’ve been having to do similar things at ThinkInk – albeit, of course, on a much smaller scale. For example, the company is growing and I am constantly looking at ways to make the agency more efficient while delivering the very personal service we have delivered as a smaller operation. And I am also forced to do the cost-benefit analysis of keeping some clients - and not because they cant’t pay. Sometimes you get into bed with the wrong partners. If that’s the case, my advice is to give up what isn’t essential or creating value to your agency so you can focus on the essentials and value-creators better.

To be sure, I don’t see myself going to the lengths the girl in this droll video does to eliminate the distractions of her gadgets. But I get the message, and I can see myself making a conscious effort to quit multitasking so much.

Maybe we all can. And actually get more done. And done better.

Here’s hoping.

All Work and No Play: Can American Workers Get Their Lives in Balance?

Last week was one of the most hectic I’ve had in quite a while. My PR agency, ThinkInk is on a growth tear: we opened an office on the West Coast on June 1^st and we’re about to relaunch our website any moment now.  There was also a trade conference going on here last week and a sick daughter to take care of. I barely had a second to breathe – or sleep.

So I spent most of the weekend working to catch up, and to get ahead of the coming week. Amid the nonstop bustle, something jumped out at me - I was sending emails to both clients and employees throughout the entire weekend. And they responded immediately. Does anyone really have a life anymore?

An article on the Harvard Business School website got me thinking about the ongoing trend of Americans working more and more hours, either to keep up with the bills because their wages are stagnant or because they are afraid of being replaced if unwilling to be available for work at any time. Let’s face it, given the jobs crisis we’re battling, with widespread pay and benefit cuts, workers are doing more for less because they are terrified of losing their jobs. And their employers know it: squeezed employees mean bigger corporate profits. Add to that the slow, steady decline of the country’s organized-labor movement, and you’ve got millions of workers with fewer options.

Another (significant) factor that is making it more difficult to get away from the office, even while at home: our ubiquitous mobile devices.

The vast majority of us are carrying around at least one Internet-connected device at all times, and we are increasingly reluctant to be away from them. Think about it: how many times have you been off work, either on a weeknight, a weekend or holiday, and made a firm resolution to not check your work email or answer calls from the office only to break it because you just can’t stop yourself?

That’s what I thought. The same happens with me.

This isn’t good for us, people. Studies have shown that the more hours we put in beyond a normal workday, the more at risk we are for developing depression. Which makes sense: more time spent working – and worrying about work – means less time to spend with friends and lovers, less time to catch up on sleep and physically take care of ourselves and less time pursuing our other interests (if our jobs and families allow us time to have any!). European countries understand this.

We may need to have to start having more experiments like the one mentioned in the Harvard article. The researchers worked with teams of Boston Consulting Group employees to make sure they took periodic evenings off their mobile devices. Not surprisingly, the consultants ended up saying they were much happier with their work-life-balance and…drum roll, please…with their own job performance and that of their co-workers in the experiment.

This, of course, is kind of a no-brainer. We all know balance is important. It’s just a question of trying to work as much of it as possible into our lives. There will always be room for improvement.

The Great (Work) Happiness Debate

We've heard it before. Americans are working more and getting paid less; job security's nothing like it used to be. A study in 2006 showed that American working families are clocking in 11 extra hours of work per week compared to their 1979 counterparts, and those who hold professional positions in medicine and law now consider a 40-hour workweek “part-time.” While I’m in neither of those professions, 40 hours is definitely part time for me.

The 50-hour workweek is the new 40-hour workweek in the high-powered world, and if you don't agree, you could be in for a pay cut. The Center for American Progress report highlighted in the Huffington Post states that professional women get pressured to put in longer hours, noting “'Part-time' [female] lawyers often take an immediate wage cut of 20 percent per hour for a 'part-time' schedule of 40 hours a week.”

And we get little comfort from economist Todd Buchholz if our salaried positions are sneaking in extra time. Buchholz began a writing a book about how we're torturing ourselves trying to make it in the rat race, and then he concluded that the rat race was what makes us whole.

In other words, the pursuit of success is actually what makes us the happiest.

The frontal lobe craves action, and in a life of leisure? Confusion, followed by brain-withering—Buchholz points to retirement, which he says ages us. At least it's comforting for those pulling 50-hour workweeks with paychecks better suited to 40 hours.

In Buchholz's train of thought, perhaps increased hours represent a change in employee lifestyle. Are we defining ourselves by our jobs more than before? Community involvement can't hold a candle to the good ol' days of knowing thy neighbours, and now that we're always plugged in, it's even harder to unplug to pursue hobbies or socialize. As companies try to foster quality “employee engagement,” wouldn't that inspire us to work extra hours in return for feeling valued?

We're looking at black and white when we should get out a palette and start mixing for the right shade of Compromise Gray. While Buchholz says we need to work to stay happy, we're not sure how much we need to work to stay happy.

Surely it's relative. Will the part-time life—“Rat Race Lite”—still suffice as long as we feel we're getting ahead? I’m not so sure.