As someone who's always working on multiple projects, constantly shifting between ideas and mindsets, I know all too well the cognitive cost of multitasking. In recent years, I've become better at organising my time and thoughts, however those closest to me still claim that trying to do too many different things at the same time can't be good for me.
Well… fellow multitaskers and jugglers will be happy to know that working on a number of different things at the same time can be of great benefit… but only if we learn to slow it down.
People like Albert Einstein, Charles Darwin, and Michael Crinton were able to discover and create so much in their lifetime. While all of them are incredibly talented in their unique ways, there's one practice they have in common that allowed them to be so successful. This practice is what Tim Harford (Financial Times contributor and author of Undercover Economist ) calls "slow-motion multitasking".
Slow-motion multitasking is when we have several projects in progress at the same time, and we focus on one at a time, moving between them as the mood takes us or the situation demands.
Slow-motion multitasking among creative people is ubiquitous. Multiple studies have found that highly creative people often have multiple projects in progress at the same time, and they're also far more likely than most of us to have serious hobbies. This is because when we switch between tasks slowly and intentionally, and shift our mindset, our subconscious mind is still processing previous tasks. Therefore while we're focusing and working on one, our brains are making connections between seemingly unrelated topics behind the scenes.
Pivoting between projects and ways of thinking links to a concept Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard referred to as "Intellectual Crop Rotation". Much like Transdisciplinary thinking, Intellectual Crop Rotation is about shifting. thinking in order to broaden horizons and become knowledgeable on a diverse range of topics, allowing new connections to be made and new ideas to emerge.
In today's world, the complexity of problems facing most organisations can't be solved by approaching it from a single perspective. Now more than ever creativity is essential, we need to be changing our mindset in order to gain a greater understanding of our problems.
The more we multitask in a slow and deliberate manner, and learn to harness the learnings from one task and apply it to other areas of our lives, the more effective and efficient we become at creatively solving problems.
Rapid multitasking may be the enemy of productivity, but slow-motion multitasking may be the key to unlocking the inner creative genius within us all.