In today’s day and age you’d be hard pressed to find a business professional who doesn’t spend the majority of their day multitasking in some way. Whether its scanning email while on the phone with a client, writing up a memo while eating lunch, or browsing various social media accounts while reading an industry report, today’s businessmen and women are used to doing more than one thing at a time. Although we may think that this kills two birds with one stone, recent studies show otherwise.
According to research conducted at the Institute of Psychiartry at the University of London, multitasking can lower your IQ more than smoking marijuana or staying awake for over 24 hours. The data, compiled from 1,100 workers at a large British company, shows that two out of every three workers say they have a hard time focusing on one thing at a time. The constant inflow of emails, release of data, and a variety of work deadlines makes it difficult for today’s labor force to be as productive as in the past. Although technology has given workers the opportunity to accomplish more than they ever could in a day, it also presents innumerable distractions.
So how can you go about improving labor productivity? According to Forbes.com, a “Power Hour” can be helpful in accomplishing tasks. This simply means set aside 60 to 75 minutes for heavily concentrated work time, followed by breaks to allow yourself to transition to the next task. So, the next time you’re on the phone with a client, or a friend, do your yourself, and your IQ, a favor and shut down your laptop.