Cyber Overload - Part 2

May 26, 2010

Interview with Joanne Cantor, author of the book Conquer CyberOverload: Get More Done, Boost Your Creativity, and Reduce Stress

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Mike Carruthers:
All of our electronic gadgets have us available and on call 24/7 and as a result we’re sort of becoming workaholics – and that’s not good.

Joanne Cantor:
Because “workaholism” doesn’t work - these gadgets are wonderful but you have to be the master of them – don’t let them be the master of you.
 

Joanne Cantor, author of the book Conquer CyberOverload, says the big argument for being available all of the time is, “But what if somebody needs to get a hold of me and it’s really important?"

Well what you need to do is make a list of what I call your drop everything contacts. Maybe there are 2 or 3 people in the world that have to reach you. Find a way for them to get in touch with you but don’t set it up so that you’re on call for everybody.

All of these gadgets have made it easier for us to do multiple things at the same time to multitask, which never really works.

Your brain can only focus its attention on one thing at a time. So when you’re multitasking it’s actually switching back and forth between the two tasks and every time it does that you lose information and you slow down.

So in fact multitasking is very ineffective.

It’s going to take you longer to do it that way than if you do one thing and then you switch your attention and do another thing. And of course the quality is going to be much better if you focus on one thing at a time.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here