Business Insight Zone

Continuing to clear my backlog of bookmarks, this time focusing on personal psychology and productivity.

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Christine Rosen at The New Atlantis: The Myth of Multitasking

Regular readers will know that I’m a foe of multitasking. Rosen’s exposition of the phenomenon and its pitfalls is excellent. Here’s a quote from one of the scientists she interviews:

“We have to be aware that there is a cost to the way that our society is changing, that humans are not built to work this way. We’re really built to focus. And when we sort of force ourselves to multitask, we’re driving ourselves to perhaps be less efficient in the long run even though it sometimes feels like we’re being more efficient.”

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CIO Magazine: Change Management – Understanding the Science of Change

I’m going to give this much fuller treatment some other time — my printout of the article is heavily annotated. But for now, please just take my recommendation that this is well worth reading. It bridges corporate management, personal management, and neuroscience. We need more neuroscientifically-informed business journalism like this.

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The New York Times: Can You Become a Creature of New Habits?

Another interesting article — this one much shorter — tying brain science to self-management. A sample:

Rather than dismissing ourselves as unchangeable creatures of habit, we can instead direct our own change by consciously developing new habits. In fact, the more new things we try — the more we step outside our comfort zone — the more inherently creative we become, both in the workplace and in our personal lives.

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Jessica Abel’s advice at First Second Books

Abel lays out a simple plan for organizing your time using a datebook. She’s talking to young freelancers, but the approach could work for many professionals working in the corporate environment, too.

Taking a little time to get all this in your book will do several things for you. It will become clear to you how much you can reasonably get done in a week. It will become clear where you might need to shorten your daily activities to fit in more drawing. And, most importantly, it will give you concrete goals, so that when you finish what you set out to do, you can cross it off and feel good about yourself, and you can also stop working, sometimes the hardest thing to do for a freelance artist.

That last bit is the kicker for me. You have to have that moment when you can say, “Good, that’s done,” and feel satisfaction about your effort and the rewards of it.

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(Photo by dhepnar.)

Category: The working life