Don't Believe the Multitasking Hype

Today's edition of Oprah features stark testimony about the dangers of texting and/or talking on the cellphone while driving. Her guests range from those who have lost loved one from the overconfidence of others, and even a mother whose son was killed while texting his girlfriend as he drove.

You can see more details of the heartbreaking stories here.

The Oprah Show leads me to report an old reminder about multitasking.

We Americans place a high premium on our ability to multitask.

On NPR's "Morning Edition" a while ago, Jon Hamilton had a series of reports on the myth of "multitasking," a myth that we type-A personalities embrace as gospel.

From a transcript of the opening piece:

"Don't believe the multitasking hype, scientists say. New research shows that we humans aren't as good as we think we are at doing several things at once. But it also highlights a human skill that gave us an evolutionary edge.

As technology allows people to do more tasks at the same time, the myth that we can multitask has never been stronger. But researchers say it's still a myth — and they have the data to prove it."

Multitasker that you are, you may not have time to listen to the whole 7 minute, 45 second piece. If you do, click the audio link at the top of the page.

However, see if you can make some time to read the written version of the story. I think it will give you pause...or lead you to pause on your own.

By the way: check out video of the short order cook, also found on the NPR page. You thought you knew about multi-tasking?

Really.

Break Down to Break Through

image from dailymail.co.uk




I boarded an airplane for the first time when I was 15 years old. I flew from Akron, Ohio to Miami, where I transferred to an Air France jetliner which would take me to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I would spend two weeks there as part of a group of high school missionaries, working with students at a Catholic school for handicapped children and making overnight trips to Cap-Haitien and the Albert Schweitzer hospital in the central part of the country.

This was during the rule of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, the military dictator who ruled the country with an iron fist. The school which hosted our group was around the corner from the blazing white Presidential Palace, but as Americans, we were not permitted to walk on the same side of the street as the official resident. We stared at it from a distance, a symbol of the exotic, intoxicating and dangerous place we were in.

I've spent the last few days riveted by images of devastation of Haiti. The landscape is surreal. The aerial views look like a patchwork array of chalk-like debris. The view at ground level is a thousand times worse. Fearful, injured people in the streets, covered in concrete dust and blood. And those are only the ones who are mobile, freed from the rubble of the collapsed buildings.

Once again, the presidential palace serves as a symbol. A building that once stood like a big tiered wedding cake in the Caribbean sun now is flattened, as though the hand of God Himself had smashed it.

That could be a metaphor for the nation of Haiti. From the time the first European settlers arrived, it has been a land of struggle. The indigenous people struggled with the settlers. The plantation owners struggled with the black slaves they imported from Africa. The slaves mounted a revolution and liberated themselves from French rule, then struggled to gain recognition and economic parity with its neighbors. The nation has struggled against nature and hurricanes and malevolent leaders who served their own interests instead of the people. It struggled with the oft-repeated label of being "the poorest nation in the western hemisphere."

Now, Haiti faces its biggest challenge. It literally is broken -- structurally, economically, environmentally.

Yet it still has its people. Resilient. The Haitian motto: L'union fait la force -- Unity is strength.

With support -- and a lot of it -- they can rebuild. Maybe even moving beyond past shackles to build the country they deserve.

There's a phrase: "Sometimes you have to break down to break through."

Haiti has been broken. I pray this is the beginning of its breakthrough.

Here are some links to donate to Haitian relief:

https://co.clickandpledge.com/advanced/default.aspx?wid=23093

http://photos.pih.org/home2.html

http://www.state.gov/

Taking Inventory

Happy New Year New Decade!

History/Civics/Politics buffs know that the year 2010 means the taking of the U.S. Decennial Census.

As mandated by the Constitution, the U.S. government makes its best effort to count every resident in the country as of April 1. As written in the Constitution (amended in the 14th Amendment, section two):

"The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of 10 years, in such manner as they shall by Law direct."

-- Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution of the United States

The Census count determines everything from the number of Congressional seats allocated to each state to tax dollars spent for roads, schools and other infrastructure.

A lot of people forget that on January 1 each year, in between each decennial census, the federal government makes an estimate of how many people are living in the USA. On Friday, the Census Bureau projected the U.S. population to be 308,400,400. That's an increase of 2,606,181 from New Year's Day 2009.

According to the Census Bureau, "In January 2010, one birth is expected to occur every eight seconds in the United States and one death every 12 seconds.

"Meanwhile, net international migration is expected to add one person every 37 seconds to the U.S. population, resulting in an increase in the total U.S. population of one person every 14 seconds."

Now, as interesting as it is (to me at least!) to look at the Census numbers, I think the process also provides an important comparison and companion practice to the usual New Year's tradition of making resolutions.

I'm all for resolutions and dreams. As a coach, I strongly support the act of committing to a plan of action; the intention of setting a goal and going for it.

However, I believe each act of intention requires a realistic assessment of the starting point. Taking inventory of where you are so that you can measure your progress.

A new year and a new decade is a great time to take personal census or inventory.

Who knows how far you'll go?

Turn the page

The New Year's countdown has begun, and as much as I hate to be trite, I am joining myriad pundits and commentators in expressing just how happy I am to move on the the new decade.

2009 was a hell of a year, right? Full of challenges and losses and transitions and victories, writ large and writ small. I can't help but think about the loved ones lost during the past twelve months, and over the past decade. One friend refers to the span of time between 1-1-2000 and 12-31-2009 as the "Aught-Oh's." I am feeling her on that.

However, I can't dismiss the amazing things I have seen and experienced in 2009. My country showed the world what is so unique about American democracy when it swore in an African American named Barack Hussein Obama as its 44th president. An airline pilot showed us the meaning of grace under pressure when he landed his disabled jet liner in the Hudson River.

And on a brilliant Sunday morning in May, I saw my son become a college graduate.

Of course, we know that the moments of triumph are just that -- moments; snapshots in time. Moments to cherish and celebrate, of course. And moments to help prepare us for whatever challenges are coming. 'Cause there's always another challenge coming.

And just like the triumphs provide the foundation to deal with the next challenge, the challenges can serve as the foundation to help reach the next triumph.

Lord knows this has been a year of challenge. A decade of challenge.

With a foundation like this, the next decade should be something great.

Best wishes for a fulfilling new year.

Merry Christmas

It's a few minutes after midnight on Christmas. I'm watching my son finish some last-minute gift wrapping, and thinking about how the frame through which I view Christmas has changed over the years.

I guess the first Christmas I can remember was when I was three years old, although I'm not sure whether it's a real memory or one I've created through old photographs. My big brother is spiffily turned out in a plaid bathrobe, holding his new cowboy gear. My sister has a new doll, and I'm seated beneath the tree with a big wrapped package between my legs. I can't remember what was in that package, but I do remember being pretty happy in the midst of all the chaos.

The age gap between me and my siblings is pretty big, but they did a good job of playing along with the whole Santa vibe -- helping me make cookies and deciding what kind Santa would like during his visit to our house. I don't remember too many Christmas disappointments as far as gifts go. Somehow, my wish lists managed to stay relatively reasonable, and early on I learned the joy of watching someone squeal with delight as they opened a special gift I made or saved my allowance to buy.

Still, things were changing. As time passed, my brother and sister left the Christmas dinner table to hang out with their friends. I finally realized that Santa looked a lot like my Dad, and the Christmas haul changed from toys to clothes and electronics. Eventually, the number of folks around the Christmas grew as we kids paired up and married.

Christmas returned to a time of anticipation, as the adults looked to create new fantasies and traditions for the next generation. I saw the holiday through multiple frames -- the children's, my parents, my parenting and my own personal appreciation of family and time together. Santa was back, along with new cookie varieties.

The first few Christmases after my husband died challenged all of us. We looked at December 25 with a clear reminder of what we'd lost, and also as a reminder of how blessed we were to have strong family and traditions to get us through our pain.

There have been a lot of Christmas changes over the past few years. My father and grandmother passed on. My mother's health deteriorated, and now the Christmas morning traditions and dinner have moved to my sister's home. We baby boomers now have to wake up the young adults in our family to get them down to the tree to open gifts, the reverse of all the years the kids would wake us at dawn.

So now my son has finished his wrapping. There's no expectation of Santa swooping down the chimney.

But there is anticipation of a great time next to the tree this morning, of surprise and delight and smiles and wry jokes and fellowship and love.

The frame continues to change. The joy remains.

Merry Christmas.

"The Danger of a Single Story"

The concept and the power of "The Story" is a central feature in coaching. I've made numerous references to people's stories in this blog -- how all of us create stories or narratives to make sense of our situations or environments, or the stories we carry from our childhoods or past experiences.

Recently, a friend shared a video with me that gave me a new perspective on the power and the danger of our stories, and the global implications of when we insist on sticking with a familiar story.

This summer, Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie delivered a TED lecture about the Danger of a Single Story.(If you are not familiar with TED, you need to check it out. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, features short lectures by some of the most creative thinkers in the world, in all kinds of disciplines. The label: "Ideas Worth Spreading.")

On the surface, Adichie's lecture discusses the "single story" of Africa; the limited perspective in the Western World about the mosaic of Africa and its multiple cultures and peoples. Adichie is the child of two college professors, yet her college roommate in America initially believed her to live in some sort of rural hut. Adichie acknowledges her own experience with the Single Story, as applied to the rural domestic help who worked in her parents home.

As I listened to Adichie, I thought again how often the "single story" is applied in our individual workplaces, families and identities. If your personal workplace "story" is of you as the "wunderkind," how will you see yourself as time passes? If your "story" for your supervisor is as a clueless idiot, can you recognize when he or she has a great idea?

Here's the link. It's worth a listen:

The Infinite Value of Limited Time

This week, the New York Times posted its last segment of the blog "Happy Days: The Pursuit of What Matters in Troubled Times." As the Times described it, "Happy Days is a discussion about the search for contentment in its many forms — economic, emotional, physical, spiritual — and the stories of those striving to come to terms with the lives they lead."

I have not been a regular reader of "Happy Days" and just happened to stumble upon this entry, in which Clemson University philosophy professor and author Todd May writes about a near-death experience. Its publication during a week in which Americans have been confronted and assaulted with dozens of examples of violent, untimely deaths, lead me to think harder about the gift of life we all are given.

These words particularly struck me:

"And when there is always time for everything, there is no urgency for anything. It may well be that life is not long enough. But it is equally true that a life without limits would lose the beauty of its moments. It would become boring, but more deeply it would become shapeless. Just one damn thing after another.

This is the paradox death imposes upon us: it grants us the possibility of a meaningful life even as it takes it away. It gives us the promise of each moment, even as it threatens to steal that moment, or at least reminds us that some time our moments will be gone. It allows each moment to insist upon itself, because there are only a limited number of them. And none of us knows how many."

The finite nature of life can be paralyzing. People may fear making the wrong choice. Yet that very paralysis is waste; a squandering of the finite number of years, seasons, minutes and moments allotted to each of us.