Multitasking is a Lie??

After our presentation this week, I feel a lot of relief, especially related to being one step closer to completing my degree!  Thanks for the great teamwork Jocelyn, Daina, and Allison! Now, onto the rest of the semester and this week’s blog post!  We had to watch this video before writing our blog post and I found it both very true and humorous.  The best part about it I think was as I started it, I was doing the classic multitasking of a teacher:  let me watch this video while checking my email on my phone and eating my lunch.  As the video played on, I realized I was doing exactly what I was not supposed to be doing, but isn’t that just how a teacher’s life is?

I have always thought I was a great multitasker.  I can do a lot at the same time and keep focus, but lately I have been wondering how truly productive this is.  At work, I currently have a prep afternoon because of the block system and I always have a million little things to do before I can get to the truly productive tasks of my day.  I find myself tidying up the classroom, printing lessons for the upcoming days, marking random assignments students have handed in, eating my lunch, checking emails, calling parents, and writing out my lesson plans on the board.  All of a sudden, it’s 2:30 and I truly feel like I’ve accomplished nothing.  I have 45 minutes of true prep time to do something actually on my list.  I knew something had to change, so I’ve started doing my “to-do” list first and then focusing on the administrative tasks at the end of the day.  Finally, I walk away from work feeling more accomplished and ready for the upcoming days. 

Of course, I still try to multitask a lot of the time, and the idea of single tasking is intriguing.  A couple of weeks ago, I remember having a conversation with my boyfriend in our kitchen.  I said, “yeah but I’m great at multi-tasking so I will get everything done today.”  He turned around to tell me, “multi-tasking doesn’t actually exist.  You just switch your attention from many tasks, and you think you are doing two things at once.”  I was caught off guard. For some reason I never thought of it like that and this thought stayed in my head; it clicked that this is 100% what I do all the time.  I don’t remember the last time I was truly focused and present on one task.  Lately, my boyfriend has been listening to Rob Dial’s podcast The Mindset Mentor (which is amazing) and he recommended it to me.  I started listening and one of the episodes I listened to was called “Multitasking is Dumb.”  I listened to it again this week and it really hits the nail on the head.  Rob discusses how our brains are designed to focus on one task at a time and as we multitask, our efficiency goes down for whatever task we are trying to complete.  At the end of the day, multitasking causes us to become more stressed out and mentally exhausts us. Maybe that’s why teachers are so tired all the time?!

I’m sure we’ve all had those whirlwind days where we feel like we are doing one million things or are operating with a million tabs open in our brains and sit down to think, “what just happened?” Teachers multitask everyday, (just check out this infograph to see how much we actually do) because there is so much going on in a classroom, and if we were to single-task, I actually think the classroom might implode.

So, is the Internet really a productivity tool or merely an endless series of distractions?

This week, our presentation focused on productivity suites and I think we can all agree, these suites have made teaching easier- whether it be through Microsoft or Google.  Like Leigh said in her blog this week, the internet has made it possible for us to find resources online, so we do not have to do all the work ourselves as teachers.  It has increased productivity by allowing us the opportunity to share sources on places like Twitter and Wakelet, so we can use our time for our students instead.  The internet has a variety of productivity tools to help us be more productive, but I think the problem is that we try to do too much that it defeats the purpose of whatever tool we are using.

I remember back in high school, working on essays and projects online before the internet really got interesting and being able to focus on the project at hand without opening millions of tabs and switching focus from one website to the next.  I swear my master’s papers take me twice as long to write because I am constantly switching my attention.  I have millions of tabs open, checking the rubric, taking a “brain break” I don’t deserve on my phone, back to the essay, back to the research, taking another break, finding a snack, then back to the paper only to find the reason I left the essay in the first place was because I needed a citation from another website before I could continue.

It is very easy to get lost.  As the Productivity Ninja Nancy said in her vlog this week, one tool we can try is the pomodoro technique – setting a timer for 25 minutes to get as much done on one task as possible.  This is something I am really going to try to implement into my daily routine because I struggle with focusing on one task at a time.  I actually tried it while writing this blog, and it is surprisingly difficult to focus that long without switching tasks!!  I kept having the nagging feeling of checking my phone or getting up to complete some unnecessary task.

I think part of the blame is on the internet and social media for multitasking becoming so accepted.  It is very easy to use and become distracted by, especially in this age.  Many of the readings this week focused on making our students connected and heavily focus on ensuring they have skills for the future, by using these productivity tools.  Perhaps, focusing too much on the digital side can create a negative effect on their productivity and use of these devices.  I tried to do a focused writing activity with students where they wrote for 10 minutes straight.  Most of them tried to give up after three.  Focus is difficult when you are so used to switching tasks constantly and when that is just the norm of society. 

Lots of these tools are great, but there is a fine balance to using them productively.  Multitasking has become something we brag about being good at, and maybe it’s time to switch the importance from multitasking to being able to focus on one task at a time.  As teachers we need to help students learn how to focus more often and give them more practice in the field of single tasking – in fact, we all need to work on it.