I have just read the first part of the Slow Productivity by Cal Newport. The two pages - 59 and 60 - from “Do Fewer Things” from “Principles” section particularly resonated with me and I had ideas to extend them.
The author argues for why working on the tasks simultaneously leads to more time and/or energy spent than working on them sequentially even though the first expectation would be these should take the same time - after all, all of them will have been completed. Author points it’s because of “overhead tax”. I want to paraphrase that and extend on why.
I will write about specific simplified example and add my generalised thoughts along.
Example: Let’s say your work is about delivering WP websites. Each website takes 7h to deliver. Your working hours (even though your focus is at best 5h per day) are 8h.
I will argue that working on four websites simultaneously leads to significantly more time and/or energy spend than working on them sequentially.
Let’s say you could start working on four websites. You can either do these sequentially or simultaneously. The first-glance expectation would be that these should altogether the same time: Delivering every website per day: (7+7+7+7) = 28h. Working on every simultaneously: (7/4+7/4+7/4+7/4)+…2 times…+(7/4+7/4+7/4+7/4) = 28.
Why is not that:
It’s owing to “overhead tax”, context switching and less motivation.
“Overhead tax”
- Planning
- Occupation of mental space
- Meetings/Mail/Coordination with others.
I call them “tax” because even though these tasks do not output any results/progress these are necessary part of any project.
Each of these websites need time spent on planning* (what to do and when), occupies your mental space outside working hours - some ideas or emotions related to the project - and requires time spent collaboration (if project is shared).
One could say that perhaps the “overhead tax” is proportional to the time spent on these projects - for example that, for each project 1h of overhead is needed. Then, still in both cases these would take altogether the same: 32 hours.
Unfortunately the time spent on ‘overhead tax’ activities is not fully proportional to the time spent on executing the task but very much dependent on the span of days in which the task is executed.
Think about this:
- Even though you performed planning of the task, you need to spend time on adjusting the blocks when you will do this. And also on recalling yourself the plan. (see context switching). So this happens approximately on a daily basis.
- The task will sometimes occupy your mental space outside working hours, as long as it is carried out. Yes, you can utilise Getting Things Done, not to keep all of this in your head constantly (I highly recommend GTD), but still, you will encounter thoughts and emotions - including stress - related to this task outside this task. (see context switching).
- Meetings/Mail/Coordination - no matter what is the thought time to spend on this project
Context switching:
It’s
You spend every day four time more on context switching. If this is a task requiring significant energy.*
Less motivation:
Imagine that you have no success There are studies that show this is the case.
Sequentiall successes are better.
When we are hurried we are less productive.
There is also one negative effect which hits when the above effects have already caused your schedule to overflow:
Stress.
Which even further reduces the quality.
I do agree that a little of bit stress help.
But if your schedule is stressful every few minutes, then I think we cannot speak about creative and deep work - be it coming up with a new business strategy or a elegant algorithm. We are just in ‘fight-or-flight’ mode.
From my personal points it deeply resonated wth me as I felt the 2024 for me was spent on jumping between projects with accomplishing only two significant ones.
2023 was an extremely productive year, but what I encountered is what I could have reasoned from McKay book, that once you are ‘so good’ (at least in the eyes of others and yours) then you are prone to overdo yourself.
References:
*- This is anecdotical: the author of Getting Things Done, David Allen, mentions in his book that his realisation was that spending any time but less than 2h on writing his books would be a waste.
**- in my opinion planning is necessary to accomplish any (non-habitual) task. An healthy individual always performs a task first thinking about it before, even if this is simple typing on the keyboard. Planning (giving a thought, tinkering, you name it) occurs always: it is just the moment of drawing up this plan and its quality upon which we have control. This is for another blogpost.