How being busy makes us less productive

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

The overwhelming majority of managers make sure that their subordinates do not hang out idle. It is believed that the more loaded an employee is, the more benefit he brings to the company. However, being busy is not at all the same as being productive. Sometimes everything happens exactly the opposite.

Drawing in the imagination of a productive person, we will definitely imagine him busy with some business. It is assumed that the more things you do, the more you will do. However, it is not. Being overly busy is inextricably linked with shifting attention and the need to be distracted. According to scientists, this negatively affects productivity.

According to the research by David Meyer of the University of Michigan, having to switch between two tasks increases their execution time by 25%. “Multitasking slows you down, increasing your chances of making a mistake. Switching and distraction negatively impact the ability to process information,”concludes Meyer.

The inability to productively solve two problems at once is due to the organization of our brain. Research by Dr. Travis Bradberry, a specialist in intelligence, has shown that the ability to deeply concentrate is associated with an increase in the density of certain brain structures. And when a person is forced to do two things at the same time, the opposite effect is observed.

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Microsoft found that it takes an average of 15 minutes for employees to get back to work on a major project after being distracted by a call, email, or other message. In addition, distracting messages provoked employees into extraneous activities, such as web surfing. Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz said he was surprised how easy it is to distract people from important tasks and how long it takes them to get back to work.

There is another side to the problem. Constant work in emergency mode negatively affects the nervous system. Incessant stress and tension leads to nervous and physical exhaustion. Overwork further reduces the effectiveness of any activity. Ultimately, over-employment leads to illness and a catastrophic drop in performance.

And this is if we are really trying to do our job in good faith. However, often employees only imitate high employment in order to impress their superiors. Sometimes this happens unconsciously. A person may sincerely believe that they are doing something important when in reality they are just shirking difficult tasks. In this case, being busy becomes one of the forms of laziness.

A phone bursting with calls and a day planner that doesn't have enough room to write down tasks are not at all signs of productivity. Rather, it is evidence of a lack of planning, an inability to highlight the most important, and a lack of strategy.