The High Price of Multitasking | Hacker News Reader

The High Price of Multitasking

nytimes.com

111 pointspseudolus64 comments

A simple change I'd like to see in tech culture is to change how we refer to the notifications feature. We should call them interruptions instead.

Do I want my meeting interrupted if my spouse calls with an emergency? Absolutely.

Do I want that meeting interrupted to find out I've been given a $10 Lyft credit? Absolutely not.

That Lyft credit, thank you, can be delivered to the proper home for notifications: my email.

I can only speak from the iOS side, but naming it "notification" or "interruption" is entirely up to you. By default, I answer "Do Not Allow" to "AppX would like to send you notifications". Boom, I'll never hear from that app. If I later find that I would like the app to notify me of certain events, I go back in, turn the notification setting on, and customize delivery to my tastes.

You picked a particularly timely example, as just this morning I set Lyft to "notify me about ride stuff" and "absolutely do not ever again tell me I have a credit".

To me, iOS is such a great example. We know Apple cares deeply about design and yet the number of places where iOS is setup to work against productivity is very large.

It does feel cultural. If Apple can't get this right, then it points to a cultural blind spot for all of tech. Humans are not computers--we don't multi-task. And measuring usage is just a proxy for measuring value--lots of times more usage means the experience was less valuable.

I submit that the whole topic of human/tech interactions from mundane interrupts to data/privacy management, is a good decade or so from settling out.

My kids have had their lives documented on social media in greater detail than I ever did with the old family albums.

Hopefully they aren't too upset with the results.

Apple has never been very good about productivity IMO.

They have a lot of things they are good about, but productivity usually gets sacrificed at the altar of simplicity, or a prettier look.

If you look at how the Mac productivity apps have changed, every one of them has moved from being productivity focused to being more about the design and looks. The obvious examples are Mail and Calendar (although Mail has been decent about bringing back some of the features it lost). Contacts/Address Book has always been a terrible app, and the iWork suite of apps also took a disastrous turn towards simplicity where they ended up losing a lot of functionality.

What used to be really great about the Mac OS ecosystem was the plethora of productivity focused app makers, who also had a great sense of design. When it came to productivity on the Mac (or any platform, for that matter), the real strides came from 3rd party Mac developers.

>> It does feel cultural. If Apple can't get this right, then it points to a cultural blind spot for all of tech.

I don't think it's so much a blind spot as a deliberate disempowerment of the user.

If we actually had general purpose computing devices with operating systems designed to empower users with the ability to manage complex flows of data in both meaningful and aesthetic ways, the 'tech' market as we know it would collapse.

Cars have become computers, computers have become devices, and devices have become advertising nodes. Nodes are interested in invisible collection of data about the user, not aiding users in benefiting and sorting through the data generated.

>> And measuring usage is just a proxy for measuring value--lots of times more usage means the experience was less valuable.

So much this. We originally created these machines to automate repetitive tasks, but somewhere along the way we switched paradigms and now they force us to engage in repetitive tasks.

by clicking not allow, you never get the notification.

android now has silent notifications. they appear in the bar but dont interrupt you. you can choose alert me or silent or none. its a much better paradigm.

iOS 12 allows "Silent Notifications" too.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201925#manage-alerts

I guess I havent played with 12 enough this year. Amazing what taking off a year can do.

iOS 12’s new “Delivery Quietly” notifications don’t appear on the Lock Screen, play sounds, or show banners when the device is unlocked. All of those have been possible for years, but iOS 12 made it easy to toggle directly from a notification.

This is an interesting thread because I always have my phone on silent so I dont notice there was a problem

Does this mean that notifications dont vibrate my phone when it is unlocked and Im using it?

by clicking not allow, you never get the notification.

I know we're talking past each other, or our use cases are different, because to that I reply, "duh, that's kind of the idea." :-)

I like the idea.

'Notification' sounds so nice and subtle, but most of the time it is actually an unnecessary diversion, that would be better categorized as an 'interruption'.

I started wondering a year or so ago if there's enough metadata available in my dev tools to determine if I am actively engaged in debugging or if I'm just decompressing (aka 'fucking around' according to some) on Hacker News.

If I can get that information reliably enough, I could use Automator on OS X to enable Do Not Disturb until a couple minutes after I task switch to anything else that's not focus-based.

Great idea!

RescueTime is what you need.

At work, we've been pushing everyone to use an app called clockwise. Basically it integrates with your calendar, moves meetings around (with your approval) to maximize focus time (2+ hour blocks of work).

It also allows you to set up "Do not disturb" on slack during your focus and meeting time. It's awesome.

(BTW, no personal association with the company, just a happy user).

https://www.getclockwise.com/

I like it! Im having a hard time coming up with solid indicators that Im debugging or otherwise in focus mode that wouldn't also be red herrings for other activity. Have you come up with any good examples for yourself?

I've used RescueTime[1] to track my own behavior during work to better understand my own patterns. It might be usable to do what you describe.

https://www.rescuetime.com/

Using the iOS 13 beta is pretty nice in this regard. Calendar events usually show a (non-sound interruption) notification prompting you to turn on Do Not Disturb for the duration of the calendar event.

One thing that I find really annoying with my current Android phone (Nokia 6.1) is that all notifications use the same sound.

Plugging in a charger sounds the same as receiving a text message sounds the same as an email arriving.

One of my happiest purchases of the last few years was a smartwatch. It has a different vibration pattern for every type of notification, meaning I can set my phone to silent permanently and still know what's going on.

It's kind of empowering to receive a message and know if I even need to look at my wrist or not (let alone actually bring out my phone). Makes me feel like a cyborg.

Next just set it up to read out the message header to you in Morse code vibrations.

Lyft is particularly nefarious in hiding the preference to treat important notifications (your driver is here) differently from the BS coupon crap. In the app sidebar, you have to go to Settings, Privacy (subtitle: choose what data you share with us), Notifications Preferences. There you can disable the promo crap notifications.

But to find this setting basically requires traversing every node in the settings tree, not following common sense. The Privacy subtitle in particular (“choose what data you share with us”) is especially misleading, since it makes it seem that that the Privacy Settings are only about controlling what data you share with Lyft.

It’s underhanded crap like this that shows me Lyft is no better than Uber. They’re both mercenary, deceptive companies willing to do anything for an extra buck.

Let's work together please

I don't really understand why people turn on notifications. The one feature I would like (and I can sort of doing for some applications) is just to give me a list of notifications that have happened when I explicitly look for them. Like you say, I don't need real time notifications for anything, really -- I just eventually need to know that something has happened. It would be nice to have that in an organised list rather than spread around a bunch of different applications.

Indeed. It's unfortunate that any useful communication channel is a vector for advertising/promotion and is ultimately destined to be so overridden by spam that we're forced to take drastic measures.

If this weren't the case, we'd be able to use a single channel for all of our notifications, but every time a channel gets overridden by spam, we're forced to shift to less noisy channels as our primary focus of attention. Rinse and repeat.

Hopefully we're able to establish and enforce meaningful cultural norms surrounding the exploitation of these channels and demand simple sophisticated granular filtering mechanisms before we adopt intensely immersive and liminal technologies which ultimately encase the entirety of our existence in a cacophonous chamber of commercial cadjoling.

Multitasking doesn't exist, it's just jumping from one task to another. I run operations/tech side of things at the company I work for. Over the last month, there were a lot things going on,which just ended up being priority on top of priority(and they were not made up 'important' things). At some point I looked at my inbox and I had 500 unread emails with no light at the end of the tunnel,because in the morning I have to take this 45 min call with some moaning customer,who wants to speak to the manager, shortly after I have to deal with some compliance bs,while in the afternoon I somehow need to push some code changes to production.So not much time left to read emails.So one day,I just marked them all to 'read' and moved to archived.The inbox was empty. What happened? Nothing. Just a hard reset on my inbox.So now I'm less behind on some stuff and the rest can go to hell,or send me an email again.

Multitasking is what prevents us from working on a problem uninterrupted. If you are not allowed to concentrate on a problem because another task has higher priority you are doing multitasking. You said it yourself, multitasking is jumping from one task to another, and I may add the word unfinished before task.

Its all about focus and dedication. That's hard to spread over several subjects.

Absolutely agree. Yesterday my colleague and I had to work on something with very hard deadline.I emailed my team explaining that we won't be available for calls,emails or anything else. In just 4-5 hours I've done more than it would otherwise have taken me a few days to complete.There were lots of missed calls though:)

wouldn't it be easier to describe multi-tasking as context switching?

What we call multitasking is usually task switching, according to an article I read after a similar discussion on HN. The dividing line has something to do with only one task at a time being able to use an area of the brain. As long as one of the tasks doesn't use that area, you can multitask. Otherwise, you can physically only task switch.

That sounds familiar.

I'm supposed to be rewriting a critical part of the main system, while modernising it and preparing to roll out new features (and fixing the constant serious and critical bugs that crop up every couple of days), while managing the initial planning for the company who fucked up the current one to start working on another fucked up one (don't ask, I lost that fight) while dealing with user issues, GDPR compliance, systems administration (still have servers on Debian 7 with PHP5) and on and on it goes.

It's part of the reason why when I'm off in a week or so I'm going to mull over whether it's simply time to leave, I want to work on a team again where it doesn't all fall on me.

Seems stupid to do all the above for the same money as a regular developer on a normal team can get.

Sounds like a situation that can only be drowned in many,many,and I mean many, pints of beer...

If I could drink I would but I can’t for medical reasons.

I've done the same thing multiple times. Used to get 1500 email a day and 5000 over a weekend. There's really not much other option. We need email 2.0, desperately.

Email 2.0 or 3.0 won't help. Nowadays we have things like Slack,which is the same crap,only requires immediate attention. One of the main problems,in my opinion,is people's obsession with notification. Just yesterday I had a meeting,where my colleague said he's happy to get additional 200-300 emails/month instead of a daily report with the same info. The other category are the people who Cc'ing everyone on everything.When I see an email with 5-8 people Cc'ed,it makes me sick.There are situations,where it makes sense but in general it's just 'it won't make any harm if I'll CC him as well' kimd of thing.

There was a recent HN submission about how distributed message queues are a bad design from history, with a lot of problems, and request/response is much better.

This calls to me as a problem with email - we dump information into email and then expect a response, while trying to forget about the email. Then with no response, the system breaks down - we have no clue what happened; do we requeue the email? Wait more? Ask if the email system is down? Chase every email with a phonecall?

We need some replacement (like a ticketing system, for more than just tickets) for tracking work, and where the system will chase it up until it's done - or close it once it's no longer needed. For at least part of things, a centralised work queue that isn't duplicated in inboxes and relying on individual's organizational skills.

Earl Miller has researched multitasking from a neuroscientist's perspective.[1] The concept of "switch cost" is interesting:

"We are only good at doing one thing at a time. But we are switching back and forth. It takes time for our brain to change from one task to another.

Switch cost is when it takes your brain a short while … to realign for a new task. Your brain has to backtrack and figure out where it was in the first place."[2]

[1] https://ekmillerlab.mit.edu/tag/multitasking/

[2] https://www.today.com/health/multitasking-doesn-t-work-why-f...

A problem with multitasking is that people may choose to work on a project that is not the most important project for the company to complete.

Assume a company that has six projects, started but not finished, in its portfolio.

The value of those projects, when delivered, will not be equal. Some will likely be 10x or 20x the revenue of others in the portfolio.

If people are multitasking, they are jumping around from project to project. The most important project to complete (A, let's say) is standing still while people work on the other projects. Every so often, A gets some attention and so it makes some progress towards completion. But before too it has to wait again when less important projects are worked.

The company suffers because valuable projects take longer than they should to complete and begin earning money for the company. Sales that are not made because the product is not available for sale are never recovered. Developers are deprived of the satisfaction of completing projects frequently because projects always seem to take too long to finish.

Bottom line, cutting your work in process often brings dramatic improvements.

Thoughts?

Long back around 2014, I started with No-Notification by Default[1] on my phone and my digital life. It was a really good start, and today I don't get notified of anything except very critical things that I selectively choose to keep them on.

About a year back, I experimented with a default Silent and Default DND[2] on my phone. No call goes through except the ones in my favorites (less than 10). I'm loving it.

1. https://brajeshwar.com/2014/missing-step-productivity-activi...

2. https://no.phone.wtf/

Multitasking doesn't exist but distractions certainly do. This is one of the reasons I've stopped using multi-monitor setups.

My preferred set up is a large 4k monitor. If I can work with one application set to full screen, I'm happy. Normally though I end up with my editor taking up the left half to two thirds of the screen and the right section contains a browser or terminal.

I use virtual desktops and on my second screen I have my music player and all the messaging apps and email that I need. I flip to that desktop probably three times a day.

In college, one of my computer science professors was giving a lecture in which he explained all the low level things (like setting up the stack) that go into calling a function. Then he compared it to the context switches that occur during multitasking. That comparison has stuck with me ever since. It made me very aware that there's a cost to switching tasks each time you do it.

I love gadgets and sensors, I've looked for a reason to get a smart watch. I have avoided it because once I eliminate interruptions/multitasking, I can't see a good use case for me. I check email/messages too often, I can't imagine a buzz/chime/flash on my wrist helping.

You might be right. Let me submit that a smartwatch allows you to glance, deal with it or not, go on about your day. In contrast to the phone, where once I unlock it, it has a higher tendency to drag me in. IOW, the watch is my first line of defense to minimize me getting my phone out of the bag.

If the smartwatch can be used as a triage device, I believe it could benefit focus. Glancing at a watch, seeing just the necessary information, and getting back to work is more efficient than opening a phone. Now, if you just use the watch as a phone, it'll screw upbyour flow just as much as a phone.

Are piano players, keeping a distinct lower-register tune in their left hand WHILE their right hand plays a distinct tune, truly multitasking ?

The accompaniment hand is practiced to the point where it's automated, so not truly.

I would say no—rather, their hands are executing two parts of the same task: playing piano.

That's like saying a wind player is multitasking when they blow air while simultaneously moving their fingers.

If you mean a different piece in each hand simultaneously, then yes, I'd consider it multitasking. Until the pianist practiced doing that enough to think of it as a single piece in their head, that is.

When will the first manager manage accordingly? When do we see a job listing that says they want somebody who doesn't multitask?

It has to start at the very top. Managers get bullied into creating multi-tasking cultures because they aren't allowed to staff projects sequentially. Every stake holder cares that their project is started, at the expense of when all projects will finish.

Early Paypal had singular focus, although I've only heard the stories told through the mythologizing of the founders: http://blog.idonethis.com/manager-focus-peter-thiel-paypal/

I think there's a way to manage remote teams that promotes single tasking. Because communication is harder with remote teams you have to make a choice: have more of it or have less of it. I always choose to have less communication by trying to simplify work, eliminate coordination (especially parallel projects), actually push decision making out to the edges. I don't know exactly how well the people who work with me enjoy it, but I know I only have one meeting on my calendar this week, and so I'm pretty free to single task at least.

Second this! I think we're seeing this change, at least in the tech space with notions like "Deep focus time" and "DND hours."

While I totally agree on the dangers of multitasking, I found a certain genre of music to help me to get into a flow state while programming and thus massively boosting my productivity.

What genre is that? I tend to listen to different ones, but no one genre manages to get me into the flow every time.

Progressive psytrance. What's interesting is that a lot of other genres of electronic music (which have similar characteristics) don't have the same effect on my productivity and ability to concentrate.

I'm not too surprised; I find a YouTube mix of an hour or two Psy Trance or Psy Breaks to pass incredibly quickly. Classic trance gets a bit dull, EDM is too engaging.

It's even more effective than thunderstorm or "train in the rain" soundscapes, just as long as it doesn't have much in the way of lyrics.

Why would you not go on to state what the genre was after establishing it as the focal point of your comment?

The focal point of my comment was that I disagree with music (always) being a distraction to you primary action.

Multitasking is analogue to multithreading with GIL. As long as the tasks are computing/analytics intensive, you're better off dealing with them sequentially one at a time.

I can think of few things more thoroughly chanted by the mainstream than "multitasking bad!". Yet it seems that the most prolific outliers do quite a bit of multitasking (for some notion of multitasking). In startups Steve Jobs and Elon Musk come to mind.

Is anyone aware of any evidence (or even more anecdotes) of "multitasking good"?

Do (did) they? With Musk, working at two companies isn't the same as multi-tasking. He could show up to one in the morning and then the other in the afternoon and people would generally consider that to still be single tasking.

Multitasking is harmful for left-brain dominant persons, because the left brain processes information in a linear-sequential manner. This does not permit the resumption of interrupted tasks.

Multitasking is not as harmful for right-brain dominant persons, because the right brain processes information in a visual-simultaneous manner. This ALLOWS the resumption of interrupted tasks.

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