The Impact of Multi-Tasking on Innovation

Multi-tasking has become a way of life for most information workers. The results of a study conducted by Gloria Mark involving extensive fieldwork observation of information workers (over 1,000 hours of observation over a 13-month period) revealed that information workers in a variety of work roles experienced a high level of discontinuity in executing their activities. People averaged about three minutes on any task before switching tasks or being interrupted. Information workers tend to juggle many different projects, working on an average of twelve different projects, or what Gloria calls working spheres. When discrete events are clustered into their appropriate working spheres findings reveal that people do not work very long in any of their working spheres before switching to another: people average about 10 ½ minutes at a stretch in a working sphere. Further, people are almost as likely to interrupt themselves as to be interrupted by any external source (e.g. a phone call).

What does this mean for innovation in the workplace? When people switch working spheres they are actually rapidly switching different contexts. This means that people spend no longer than a bit over ten minutes on any context before being interrupted or switching to another. Gloria argues that such fast changes of context are detrimental for innovation; in order to innovate, people need to spend concentrated time on a topic. Ruminating over a problem and thinking deeply to evaluate different alternatives or new directions is just not possible if people are constantly switching contexts and diverting their attention away from the task at-hand. When one switches away from their task then after the interruption they must reorient back to that task. Informants report that this often creates redundant work and stress. People thus spend a great deal of their limited attention resources on just keeping track of what work needs to be completed in their different working spheres and reorienting back to their interrupted task.

However, there is a flip side to this argument. As the work by Obstfeld suggests, continual contact with different people and different tasks could lead to new ideas and new perspectives through cross-fertilization. Informants have also reported that sometimes if a problem cannot be solved, they leave it to incubate for a time, until a solution can be found. Solving similar problems in other working spheres may help shed light on the problem. Clearly, more research is needed to disentangle these issues.

What are solutions to multi-tasking? Some people report that they need time away from others to be able to focus deeply on a problem. This may require shutting the office door (which can be socially unacceptable) or working at home. Others report that they limit email or Internet use to one or two times a day to reduce distraction. The larger problem though is that the average person is faced with having to manage twelve different working spheres in the workplace which stretches attention thin. Whether the information worker is a hamster in a wheel trying to keep up with the demands of the workplace or is someone who can take control of their work and innovate is very much dependant on how well they can manage priorities and find time to focus on those tasks that require time to find useful solutions.

One of the most amazing qualities of Albert Einstein was his ability to focus long periods of time—scores of years—on single problems. That is a testament to the notion that innovation requires time and deep reflection. It is also contrary to the multi-tasking experience which confronts the contemporary information worker.