I am a solo parent of a 9-year-old. I have a fulltime job plus a consulting business. I volunteer at our church and at my son’s school. I thrive on multitasking! I have an innate sense/ability to organize and manage time.

In the world today the optics of multitasking is a valuable currency – you are viewed as a more important and more competent the more you juggle. How many times have you been sitting with colleagues at coffee and the conversation has turned to how many balls you have in the air? Or how much work you got done while on the teleconference this morning? Or how you watched a movie last night while texting with your sister and knitting a scarf at the same time?

Research is now telling us that the “benefits” of multitasking are a fallacy. Scientific data is now indicating that our brains are wired to be serial processors – one task followed by another task. It also suggests that each time our concentration is pulled from the primary task it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get refocused again. Long-term multitasking impacts the brain such that you are less able to discern noise and distraction from what you are supposed to be focused on. This inability to prioritize can also lead to focusing on the less important and even irrelevant at the expense of the more important.

There is also an evolutionary cost to our multitasking obsession. Research has shown that our attention span as a population has decreased from 12 seconds in 2000 to a mere 8 seconds now. I have been complaining to my friends that I cannot pay attention to a whole movie anymore and that I have the attention span of a gnat! Seems like that may be true and I have no one to blame but myself! I guess I owe Toad an apology since I have been blaming him for my lack of focus for years now!

All kidding aside, I am more aware now of the example I want to set for Toad and for the subtle message I am sending to the people I work with when I multi-task and hold that “accomplishment” as a badge of honour. What does honour people, is to be fully engaged with them and to give your energy to what they need and what is important to them.