親愛(ài)的安妮：

    自從兩三年前，我所在的部門(mén)因裁員而縮水后，我在公司內(nèi)部就贏得了“千手觀音”的雅號(hào)，常常同時(shí)處理五六個(gè)項(xiàng)目，像超人一樣飛天遁地。這樣的工作方式不僅令人筋疲力盡，而且削弱了我的工作能力。每件事耗費(fèi)的時(shí)間都比我集中火力、逐個(gè)擊破時(shí)要長(zhǎng)出很多。

    因此，我決定在新的一年里戒除這種習(xí)慣，至少要減少這種情況的發(fā)生。問(wèn)題在于我的老板，他不停地派給我更多工作，用他的話說(shuō)，就是讓我“左右開(kāi)弓”，而其實(shí)我已經(jīng)比木料場(chǎng)的啄木鳥(niǎo)還要忙了。您或者您的讀者能否給點(diǎn)建議，幫我說(shuō)服他，一次只處理一件事情對(duì)我們都會(huì)更好嗎？

    ——疲憊不堪的人

    親愛(ài)的疲憊不堪的人：

    大量學(xué)術(shù)研究已經(jīng)無(wú)可置疑地證明，每次將注意力轉(zhuǎn)向別處時(shí)，人的大腦都需要時(shí)間來(lái)重新調(diào)整集中。例如，2009年斯坦福大學(xué)（Stanford）的一個(gè)著名實(shí)驗(yàn)發(fā)現(xiàn)，一心多用的人“更容易受到無(wú)關(guān)環(huán)境刺激的干擾”，也就是說(shuō)，更容易分心，處理手頭事務(wù)的效率更低。

    因此，你覺(jué)得同時(shí)做幾件事情令自己效率低下，這種感覺(jué)沒(méi)錯(cuò)。但是，如果學(xué)術(shù)研究對(duì)你的老板不起作用，那么實(shí)現(xiàn)咨詢公司（Realization）的首席執(zhí)行官桑杰夫?古普塔建議用一個(gè)快速的小游戲的來(lái)證明這一點(diǎn)。

    具體的做法如下：準(zhǔn)備一只秒表，或者任何有秒針的手表也行。按下秒表，看看你（或老板）寫(xiě)下“multitask 123456”（英文單詞multitask及阿拉伯?dāng)?shù)字123456——譯注）需要多長(zhǎng)時(shí)間。然后，再按秒表，看看交替寫(xiě)下“m1u2l3t4i5t6a7s8k9”需要多少時(shí)間。

    游戲很簡(jiǎn)單吧？我寫(xiě)下“multitask 123456789”用了9.5秒；而將文字和數(shù)字之間輪換著寫(xiě)，花了我24秒，是前者兩倍多的時(shí)間。

    好吧，或許只是我自己同時(shí)處理多任務(wù)的能力很差，但是，古普塔表示，即便是多任務(wù)處理能手（例如你，也許），在這個(gè)游戲的兩個(gè)結(jié)果上，也會(huì)出現(xiàn)很大的不同?！敖Y(jié)果可能與人們的直覺(jué)相反，但是如果讓兩名員工完成同一個(gè)任務(wù)，其中集中注意力處理這個(gè)任務(wù)的員工，總是會(huì)比同時(shí)處理多個(gè)任務(wù)的員工完成得更快，錯(cuò)誤更少，”古普塔說(shuō)。

    “許多人在簡(jiǎn)歷和求職面試中夸耀自己的多任務(wù)處理能力，”他補(bǔ)充說(shuō)道?！暗菍?shí)際上，它無(wú)異于告訴人們，‘我做事情沒(méi)有別人快，沒(méi)有別人好?！?/p>

    Dear Annie: Since my department was shrunk by layoffs a couple of years ago, I have gotten an in-house reputation as a champion multitasker, able to handle half a dozen projects at one time (and leap tall buildings in a single bound). Working this way is not only exhausting, but I think it makes me less competent. Everything takes much longer than it would if I could just focus on one task at a time.

    So I made a New Year's resolution to cut it out, or at least do less multitasking. The problem is my boss, who is constantly piling more stuff on me to do "with my left hand," as he puts it, when I'm already busier than a woodpecker in a lumberyard. Can you or your readers suggest any way to convince him that we'd all be better off tackling one thing at a time? — Frazzled

    Dear Frazzled: A heap of academic research has demonstrated conclusively that the human brain needs time to refocus every time we turn our attention in a different direction. A famous experiment at Stanford in 2009, for instance, found that multitaskers are "more susceptible to interference from irrelevant environmental stimuli" -- that is, more easily distracted and less efficient at what they're trying to do.

    So your impression that doing several things at once slows you down and trips up your productivity is correct. But if your boss isn't impressed with academic research, Sanjeev Gupta, CEO of consulting firm Realization, suggests a quick game to prove the point.

    Here's how it works: Get a stopwatch, or any watch with a second hand, and time how long it takes you (or your boss) to write "multitask 123456789." Next, time how many seconds it takes to write the same thing, but this time with the numbers interspersed between the letters: "m1u2l3t4i5t6a7s8k9."

    Simple, right? When I tried this, it took me 9.5 seconds to write "multitask 123456789" -- and 24 seconds, or more than twice as long, to write the version that requires switching back and forth from letters to numbers.

    Okay, so maybe I'm just lousy at multitasking but, says Gupta, even master multitaskers (like you, perhaps) will see a dramatic difference. "It seems counter-intuitive, but if you give two employees two identical tasks, the one who focuses on one task at a time will always finish faster and with fewer errors than the one who multitasks," Gupta says.

    "Many people boast about their multitasking prowess on their resumes and in job interviews," he adds. "But in reality, this is like saying, 'I don't get things done as quickly, or as well, as others do.'"

    古普塔能夠用實(shí)打?qū)嵉慕?jīng)濟(jì)案例來(lái)證實(shí)自己的觀點(diǎn)。在過(guò)去十年中，他的公司一直致力于幫助客戶擺脫一心二用的習(xí)慣，使得一些機(jī)構(gòu)的生產(chǎn)力提高了50%或以上，如西門(mén)子（Siemens）、波音公司（Boeing）、達(dá)美航空公司（Delta）和美國(guó)空軍（U.S. Air Force），估計(jì)總共為這些企業(yè)帶來(lái)了35億美元的額外現(xiàn)金和利潤(rùn)。

    舉兩個(gè)例子：通過(guò)重新設(shè)計(jì)流程，杜絕多管齊下，醫(yī)療軟件制造商美敦力公司（Medtronic）將其新品發(fā)布時(shí)間從九個(gè)月縮短到了兩個(gè)月。波音公司通過(guò)消除多管齊下的現(xiàn)象，將衛(wèi)星制造的生產(chǎn)率提高了64%。

    古普塔稱：“毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，一次集中精力只做一件事情，能夠讓人們提高效率，帶來(lái)真正的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)優(yōu)勢(shì)?！焙芎?，但是在實(shí)踐中，如何下定決心減少一心二用的情況呢？

    “首先，弄清楚一心二用的原因，”古普塔建議道。他發(fā)現(xiàn)，實(shí)現(xiàn)咨詢公司的企業(yè)客戶中，造成這種情況的原因主要有兩個(gè)。

    “第一個(gè)原因是，因?yàn)槿狈Τ浞值臏?zhǔn)備，沒(méi)法一鼓作氣完成工作，干到一半只能停下來(lái)，”古普塔說(shuō)?！耙虼?，你只好放下這個(gè)任務(wù)，去做別的事情?！?/font>

    補(bǔ)救方法：事先對(duì)任務(wù)進(jìn)行分析，動(dòng)手之前，確保完成任務(wù)所需的一切條件都已就緒。

    第二個(gè)主要原因——似乎也就是造成你一心多用的原因——即“老板對(duì)工作的輕重緩急缺乏明確的概念，因此他希望靠你同時(shí)處理多個(gè)任務(wù)來(lái)彌補(bǔ)這一點(diǎn)?！?/font>

    解決這個(gè)問(wèn)題需要運(yùn)用一些交際手段。下一次，如果你已經(jīng)超負(fù)荷運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)，老板又丟給你別的工作，你就應(yīng)當(dāng)“坐下來(lái)跟他談?wù)劊屗迅鞣N任務(wù)按照優(yōu)先級(jí)進(jìn)行排序，”古普塔建議。“哪些事最重要，需要立即完成，哪些任務(wù)可以稍后處理？”

    當(dāng)然，也許無(wú)需問(wèn)老板，你自己就能確定各項(xiàng)任務(wù)的優(yōu)先次序。這種情況下，得習(xí)慣于設(shè)置自己的優(yōu)先事項(xiàng)，然后按順序逐項(xiàng)完成。當(dāng)然，這需要一些練習(xí)。畢竟，一心二用和其他習(xí)慣一樣，很難打破。但是，古普塔說(shuō)：“你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，工作效率提高了，工作質(zhì)量更好了，所有的努力是值得的?！弊Ｄ愫眠\(yùn)。

發(fā)表評(píng)論：你是否認(rèn)為自己是個(gè)多任務(wù)處理高手？你認(rèn)為同時(shí)做多件事情，效率更高還是更低？請(qǐng)?jiān)谙旅姘l(fā)表評(píng)論。

    譯者：qian

    Gupta can back up his views on this with dollars-and-cents evidence. For the past 10 years, his company has been helping clients rid their projects of multitasking, which has boosted productivity at outfits like Siemens (SI), Boeing (BA), Delta, and the U.S. Air Force by 50% or more, adding an estimated total of $3.5 billion in extra cash and profits.

    A couple of examples: By redesigning processes to eliminate multitasking, medical software maker Medtronic (MDT) cut its new-product release time from nine months to two months. At Boeing, cutting out multitasking boosted productivity on the manufacture of satellites by 64%.

    "There is no question that concentrating on one thing at a time will make you more productive and give you a real competitive advantage," Gupta says. Fine, but in practical terms, how do you keep your resolution to cut down on multitasking?

    "First, take a look at why you are multitasking in the first place," he suggests. In the companies where Realizations does its consulting work, Gupta sees two main causes of doing several things at once.

    "The first one is, you interrupt yourself in the middle of a task because something is missing, so you aren't prepared to finish it," he says. "So you drop it and do something else."

    The remedy for that: Analyze the task in advance and make sure before you start that you have everything you'll need to carry it through to the end.

    The second chief cause -- and the one that seems to apply to your situation -- is that "your boss lacks clear priorities, so he expects you to multitask to make up for that."

    Fixing this will take some diplomacy on your part. The next time he throws you something else to do when you're already overloaded, "sit down with him and ask him to rank the various assignments in order of priority," Gupta advises. "Which are the most important things to get done immediately, and which ones can wait a bit?"

    Of course, you may well be able to determine this for yourself without asking, in which case you'll have to get used to setting your own priorities -- and then sticking with them. This will take some practice. Multitasking can, after all, be as hard a habit to break as any other. But, says Gupta, "you will find that your increased productivity, and better quality of work, is worth the effort." Good luck.

Talkback: Do you consider yourself a proficient multitasker? Do you find that doing several things at once makes you more productive, or less so? Leave a comment below.