One of the things I love about my job is that it’s always something different.
One afternoon last week was a prime example. I was working away on the design and copy for our annual report on my computer. I turned away to answer the phone to take down some information about the time and location for an upcoming outreach event.
While I was on the phone, our deputy director left a note on my keyboard that she needed some signage designed and put up by the end of the day.
I’m a master juggler and I thrive in this kind of a fast-paced environment. It’s what makes professional communications so challenging and fun for me. It’s always something.
Recent studies say this kind of multitasking is hurting my IQ and affecting my productivity. I like to think I’m in the 2 percent who can be effective, but I have noticed at least one casualty. My ability to focus and stay on task for long periods of time is eroding. Spend two or more hours dedicated to one project? Nope, it doesn’t happen very often.
When it does happen, it’s because I’ve consciously shut down email and social networks which are always running the background. It’s silencing my phone and letting it go to voicemail. It’s shutting my office door and blocking off time on my calendar. I’ve even taken to going into the office on Sunday afternoons in an effort to have uninterrupted blocks of time.
Despite doing all this, I often catch myself “checking” email or logging into Twitter during the time I’m supposed to be dedicated to one project. Even on Sundays when no one else is working.
This lack of focus shows up all around us. When was the last time you read a really long, cohesive article in a magazine? It’s all smaller chunks of easily-digestible nuggets of information, things like sidebars, info-graphics. We all want the quick sound bite – the short answer – no matter how complex the issue might be.
When I was out of work and playing around with my novel, I found this to be true. The discipline to work for long hours on just one scene or one chapter wasn’t easy. I ended up writing a little, doing something else, coming back to it for a little while and stepping away to do something else.
Each time I returned to the writing, I spent most of my focused time diving into the scene again and not really developing anything new. It takes the same amount of time to get back into any kind of a project once you leave. The quicker you step away, the less time you have to devote to developing new material or taking the story into new territory.
The same is true for my projects. I can whip off the short and sweet projects with ease. Someone needs a press release? No sweat – if I have the information, I can get it ready for approval within 30 to 45 minutes. A sign for the lobby recognizing a granting agency? No sweat – it’s be approved and up by the end of the day.
But it’s the longer, more involved pieces that suffer and get pushed aside for the shorter assignments; the “quick and dirty” as we used to call them in the newsroom, slang for the really short filler pieces that came from press releases or weekly roundups from longer news stories.
My goal in the next six months is to spend more time with the longer projects, the ones that require me to block out three and four hours at a stretch while focused strictly on that one item. I know I can do it, but it’s going to take retraining my work habits. And maybe I’ll protect a few more brain cells.
Photo from Flickr Creative Commons: madaboutasia’s photostream
Writer and Raconteur 