The myth of multitasking

Only 2 percent of people can multitask effectively, OnlineCollege.org has concluded. The rest of us lower our IQ by 10 points, lose two hours a day to interruptions, and suffer from distractions every 10 minutes.

Can you participate in a conference call, respond to instant messages and answer an email at the same time? I can’t.

OnlineCollege.org says we actually impair our productivity more than help it.
Technology offers an array of tools and apps that constantly distract us. On average, employees who use a computer for work are distracted once every 10.5 minutes. And, employees with desk jobs lose 2.1 hours a day to interruptions or distractions. Now factor in distractions from incoming calls or emails. That's the equivalent of missing one night's sleep.

How negativity hurts

Too much complaining is bad for your brain.

"The brain works more like a muscle than we thought," says Trevor Blake, author of Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life. "So if you're pinned in a corner for too long listening to someone being negative, you're more likely to behave that way as well."
"Typically, people who are complaining don't want a solution; they just want you to join in the indignity of the whole thing,” he adds. “You can almost hear brains clink when six people get together and start saying, 'Isn't it terrible?' This will damage your brain even if you're just passively listening.”

Blake offers these tips:
1. Get some distance
2. Ask the complainer to fix the problem
3. Block out the griping
4. Mentally retreat to your imagined favorite spot.

The worst job you ever had

Perhaps the worst job I’ve had was assistant sports editor to an editor who had about 20 assistants in a decade. One predecessor supposedly quit the day he started, cursing the editor as he walked out the door. At nearly two years, I was the second-longest in longevity, and I was proud that I didn’t leave the paper. I transferred to the news side.

Most job seekers at the Tech Career Expo in San Francisco told a reporter they left their previous jobs complaining about micro-managers, lack of recognition, and the inability to grow within the organization.

email overload

You’ll find as many articles on managing email as you find on weight loss. Holly Reisem Hanna, the founder of The Work at Home Woman, suggests several tips for managing email. She focuses on managing the inbox, but I think she misses what each of us can do to help our colleagues, such as:

• Short, focused emails
• Reducing number of people on :cc or :bcc
• Reducing email chain by deleting extraneous emails not pertinent to the issue

Vacation or pay?

50% of all U.S. workers in large cities would be willing to sacrifice a workplace benefit in exchange for more paid time off, according to a new Harris poll.

Strangely, most employees don’t even use the vacation time they already receive.

Additional findings:

·         More than 10% of the survey respondents would prefer more time off rather than a salary increase or a promotion; one-sixth would forgo a compensation bonus in exchange for more paid time off.

·         10% of all workers would give up their company’s 401(k) match in return for more vacation time.

·         25% of respondents indicated they’d give up a chance at a private office for more vacation time.

·         Only 5% are willing to take a pay cut for more time away from work.

Solutionism?

This headline grabbed my eye: Dow Chemical’s new tagline ‘solutionism’ is cringe-worthy.

Dow insists it's the new optimism, the company's new B2B marketing campaign.

I understand some genius creates a new word, or a new definition for a perfectly good word, but I'll never understand how it ever gains traction.