5 Ways to Multitask Productively… Using Email!
May 7th, 2007 (11:45am) Anne Zelenka 15 Comments
Conventional wisdom (and not a little psychological research) says that multitasking ruins our productivity. Since email lures us into multitasking with its addictive intermittent reinforcement schedule, it must therefore destroy our ability to get work done. Or does it?
Researchers Sinan Aral, Erik Brynjolfsson, and Marshall Van Alstyne found in their five-year study of executive recruiters that the relationship between email, multitasking, and productivity isn’t quite so simple. They discovered that an optimal level of multitasking — not too much or too little — combined with effective use of email and other asynchronous tech tools led to the highest productivity, as measured by recruiter compensation and revenue earned.
Multitasking, when defined as working on multiple projects over weeks and months, led to greater productivity up to a point beyond which more projects led to decreasing productivity. The most productive recruiters didn’t finish more work by doing individual projects faster, but rather by taking on more projects at once. Those who multitasked productively did so by deploying asynchronous tools like email rather than synchronous ones like the telephone.
If you want to know more about their research, listen to a podcast with Brynjolfsson or read an interview with Van Alstyne. Meanwhile, try these productivity tips based on their research:
Work on more than one project at once. Brynjolffson calls this “multitasking at the level of a month, not a minute.” In their research on executive recruiters, they found that four to six projects seemed optimal. Whether that’s the right number of projects for you will depend on the industry you work in and your own personal and professional situation. Too few projects and your work will stagnate and stall with the inevitable lulls that happen in individual projects. Too many projects and you’ll be frazzled and fried with demands on your attention. Find the right number of projects and you can interleave tasks efficiently over the course of a day.
Use asynchronous technology to multitask productively. The key finding of the study with respect to how technology boosts productivity was that it doesn’t increase the speed of project completion but rather allows more projects to be pursued simultaneously. This requires using technology that fills in the gaps you have available; that means asynchronous rather than synchronous tools. When two projects are awaiting response from other people, if you have a third project going, you can send an email or query a database for information someone else created before. You don’t have to wait for your busy schedule to align with someone else’s.
Bunch your work. The effective multitaskers didn’t check email every time a new message came in, but rather batch processed at certain times during the day, for example in the morning, mid-day, and evening.
Use short messages and quick queries in email. Long rambling dissertations and diatribes require too much thought on the part of the receiver; they don’t encourage action or quick response. Brynjolffson says the most highly productive recruiters sent short, snappy messages and received short, snappy responses in return.
Optimize your network of email contacts. The researchers found that one of the biggest predictors of productivity was being able to tap into an email social network rich with information flows. This is not just a matter of creating as many relationships as possible — because if you’re only interacting with people who interact with each other, you’ve merely found more redundant information. Instead, try to position yourself between people from different social clusters and look for diversity in your contacts.
15 Comments Post your own comment
links for 2007-05-08 says: May 7th, 2007 5:35pm
[...] 5 Ways to Multitask Productively… Using Email! (tags: email productivity) [...]
Seekersdigest.org » Blog Archive » 5 Ways to Multitask Productively… - Web Worker Daily says: May 8th, 2007 4:13am
[...] Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 5 Ways to Multitask Productively… Using Email! « Conventional wisdom (and not a little psychological research) says that multitasking ruins our productivity. Since email lures us into multitasking with its addictive intermittent reinforcement schedule, it must therefore destroy our ability to get work done. Or does it? [...]
MC says: May 8th, 2007 4:15am
Recent neuroscience studies have shown that multitasking is counterproductive.
Anne Zelenka says: May 8th, 2007 4:47am
MC, were you multitasking while reading the article? ;)
These researchers looked at multitasking on the scale of weeks and months, not at the scale of minutes. The way they defined it, headhunters managing multiple projects at once were more productive than those who managed fewer, up to about six projects. Then the benefits of this kind of multasking decreased.
Perhaps it should be called “multiprojecting.”
Tricia Ares says: May 8th, 2007 4:55pm
For more on the pit falls of multi-tasking see Multitasking and The Human Hard Drive
Top Posts « WordPress.com says: May 8th, 2007 4:58pm
[...] 5 Ways to Multitask Productively… Using Email! Conventional wisdom (and not a little psychological research) says that multitasking ruins our productivity. Since […] [...]
IDcontent says: May 8th, 2007 5:03pm
Seems familiar to me - “multiprojecting” 3 to 5 projects per month and absolutely no multitasking per hour (minimum)
It work well enough.
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Delicious « Silence is a Solution….to any inner quest…. says: May 12th, 2007 6:50am
[...] want to do this? Maybe you’re a highly productive web worker practicing multiprojecting (i.e., managing multiple projects simultaneously). Maybe you want to keep your personal and professional bookmarks separate. An easy way to manage [...]
The Crowe’s Web Site » Excellent Blogs on productivity says: May 14th, 2007 6:26am
[...] OK, I’ve been on the GTD (Getting Things Done) bandwagon for a while, and I’ve accumulated several blogs that I really enjoy. Here they are: http://www.43folders.com/2007/05/07/when-to-shred/ http://lifedev.net/2007/04/interview-with-tim-ferriss-of-the-4-hour-work-week/ http://lifehacker.com/ http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/05/07/5-ways-to-multitask-productively-using-email/ [...]
Weekly Digest: SOBCon Conference, My New Book, and Other Odds and Ends « Lorelle on WordPress says: May 18th, 2007 8:06pm
[...] Web Worker Daily - 5 Ways to Multitask Productively Using Email - anything that can speed up the process of all the little things we do every day with the web, I’m a fan of and email is one of the anchors which weighs my life down. [...]
Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive Why Emails Should be Short Instead of Nice « says: July 3rd, 2007 6:12am
[...] in human connection. While short snappy emails and short snappy replies might come across as curt, research suggests that such messages lead to the highest productivity. That’s because short emails are easy to [...]
Business Hacks » Stop Being Friendly on BNET says: July 3rd, 2007 3:19pm
[...] be curt with colleagues and customers over email? According to a study of executive recruiters (via Web Worker Daily), people are more likely to reply to important things when there’s no chitchat mixed in. [...]
ciscoetl says: May 13th, 2008 6:14pm
A few weeks ago in my blog I highlighted some recent research at Oxford that shows that, contrary to popular belief, older workers might be better prepared to function in a multitasking environment than their younger counterparts.
http://ciscoetl.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/hardhats-for-tomorrows-knowledge-workers/
The researchers said that younger workers (18-21) who are subjected to constant interruption exhibit symptoms similar to suffering a ”kick in the head” and that older workers (35-39) fare much better under similar circumstances.
Food for thought…