Is multi tasking really our only option?

Used to be that we worked for corporations where there was plenty of time. Time to complete tasks. Time to eat lunch. Time to spend moments with colleagues in the rumour mill next to the water cooler. The gossip, the business, the game took place in our own backyards and we were happy for it to be so. 

But things changed. 

The game no longer occurs on familiar turf. Instead, its created  in a globally linked village, in virtual time,  in the virtual world. That document you’re working on was needed in marketing, oops, since yesterday. The boss wanted your  proposal on his desk  two seconds ago. Deals are now brokered  only in real time.  The economy is knowledge based. And the twentieth century corporate myth that big is good is no longer valid. 

Enter then the corporation that is set up to compete in this evolving world and suddenly the first thing that disappears is time. 

There now never seems to be enough of it. People want instant information and instant gratification. Can’t provide it? Can’t arouse the market’s interests?  Can’t answer their questions now?  Then the consumer, the supplier, the people will simply switch to someone else. 

Welcome to the microwave, remote controlled society.

In this scenario, corporations have little option but to shrink to compete.  They have to become leaner, flatter, and smaller. The casualty of all this though is the human resource, not only those who are shown unceremoniously to the bread line but also the ones that are left behind. For them the workload increases ten-fold  and adjustments are mandatory because it is common knowledge that there are thousands more  looking for work.

Time becomes the new religion.  Not there to be relished, cherished and celebrated for its very existence.  What used to take  four months, now takes  four weeks, then four days, and then four minutes and ultimately four seconds. Multi tasking is the buzzword for success. The typical employee works on project A, stops it before it is completed to brainstorm with someone from finance to get statistics for project B even as the boss storms into the  office demanding the proposal for project C. 

Multi tasking means doing it all; all at once, all the time. It is deemed the core competence of the 21^st.Century employee.

But is it really? 

Or is it just another overrated skill? Designed by corporations pinching on their human resource?  This may be a perennial debate but I just met someone who goes counter to this norm. 

This particular person has done her soul searching, she knows that she is better than anyone else at doing her job, and is aware of the way her competence adds value to the firm. Super smart and super confident she insists on performing singular tasks, completing them before moving onto another. She recognises that much of her projects are not isolated and is willing to perform the tasks of getting information and working with a variety of sources, but only on one project at a time

While working on several things at once may be a natural response to the world in which we find ourselves, I doubt it is the only answer, if it was, the ultimate winners would be people that were all stressed out, over wired,  with no work/life balance and no job satisfaction. 

Instead of multi-tasking how about uni-tasking? 

That is, devoting the time and energy to completing a job and savouring the feeling of having done it well before moving on to something else. Instead of working harder how about just working smarter? Doing what you are really good at 100 times better than anyone else. 

It may be one of those unique moments where the end perfectly justifies the means.