The Myth of the '15 Minute Multitask'

Former Google CIO Douglas Merrill, author of ''Getting Organized in the Google Era'', suggests in the New York Times that we multitask more effectively by working on different tasks every 15 minutes, rather than two simultaneously.

That's great advice -- if you want to completely blow away your productivity, be less creative and more frustrated. And, no, I don't mean we should all start working on two, three, four tasks at once.

The research I've read clearly demonstrates we are penalized every time we are interrupted or switch tasks. Listen to Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, an expert on multitasking.

"To hop from one task to another, we have to pull away cognitively from one activity, then fire up the new rules and skills needed for the new task," Mark says in an interview with Fast Company. "Rapid-fire switching is inefficient and prone to error."

• More Stress. Mark says that when people focus on one task they work more slowly. A self-imposed, 15-minute deadline is going to make you work faster, I believe. You may or may not make more mistakes, but you will feel more stress.
• Less Creativity. Creativity expert Teresa Amabile, of Harvard Business School, says tight deadlines are an anathema for creativity. Switching tasks every 15 minutes doesn't allow for deep thinking.
• Increased Frustration. Repeatedly working on a series of short tasks essentially means you are drawing out the time it takes to complete them. Unfinished tasks nag the mind -- they are difficult to stop thinking about until you have finished the job, argues Getting Things Done author David Allen. Frustration takes root. (Allen suggests we start our day by knocking off chores that take 2 minutes or less to complete, so we can concentrate on the heavy stuff.)

How do you work best? Do you need short deadlines, or is time what you crave most?

Multitasking image by Mike Licht, CC 2.0)