How to protect your most valuable asset
You have only one brain. And it focuses on only one thing at one time.
Your brain is the most incredible and complex object in the universe. We have never seen anything like it. We barely understand it. We use it, but we don’t know how we use it. When we kick, we pull our leg back and swing it forward. When we think, we just think. As Cliff once said on Cheers, “Interesting little article here. It says the average human being only uses seventeen percent of his brain. Boy, you realize what that means? We don’t use a full, uh . . . sixty-four percent.”
Your brain is capable of infinite possibilities: producing great works of art, building businesses, raising children. Brains made The Starry Night and the Great Wall of China. The Beatles and the Bible. Brains made planes, trains, and automobiles. Brains make your life what it is and die when you do. The good news is for no money down, no annual fees, and no monthly interest, you get one free copy of the universe’s most complex and powerful object. It’s yours for life! The only bad news is there is no warranty, it requires daily recharging, and even the longest-lasting models in the world last only forty thousand days. (The average model lasts twenty-five thousand days.)
You break it, it’s broken. Seat belts, bike helmets, and exercise are mandatory. For power, your brain recharges with six to eight hours of sleep a day and as much healthy food as possible. That’s a lot of gas! It takes the equivalent of more than sixteen apples a day just to power your brain. But remember: The world’s most powerful supercomputer has been compacted into a three-pound pile of flesh in your skull, so no wonder it needs so much energy. Yes, nearly a full third of all the food you eat goes straight to powering your brain.
Roger was the smartest guy at the company. No doubt about it. In the years since, he’s gone up and up and up. All while eating lunch in the cafeteria every day and dinner with his family every night. I had worked with Roger only three months when I learned how to add an hour to the day with only one small change.
How?
Block access. Protect your brain. Guard it. Remove all entry points to your brain except a single one you can control. In addition to Roger’s approach to email, I learned later that he didn’t have a desk phone, personal email address, or any social media accounts. Fuel your brain and let it run wild by removing access points. Close the doors and lock the windows, but answer the bell.
What’s the bell? It’s your number one top priority. What was Roger’s bell? Emails from the chairman of the board and his family. Not voicemail, not texts, not anything else. Have you ever shopped in a small-town convenience store where they have a little bell on the front counter? They are busy stocking shelves. They are busy unpacking boxes. They are busy placing orders. But when you ring that bell they are right there, right away. That’s what it means to close the doors and lock the windows but answer the bell.
Let your brain produce great work, savor space, and power your biggest ideas, most passionate efforts, and greatest accomplishments.
The greatest misconception you share with every other employee
Multitasking.
Doing two or more things at once.
How often do you hear people use that word? What does it mean? And where did it even come from?
We have to go all the way back to a paper written by IBM in 1965 to find the origin of the word multitasking. How was it defined? “The ability of a microprocessor to apparently process several tasks simultaneously.”
Yes, that is the actual meaning. Right from the paper. Want to read it again? This time let me underline one word.
“The ability of a microprocessor to apparently process several tasks simultaneously.”
Apparently? Apparently! What do they mean by apparently? You mean, even computers don’t actually process several tasks at the same time? Well, no. They don’t. Another quote, another underline from me:
“Computer multitasking in single core microprocessors actually involves time-sharing the processor; only one task can actually be active at a time, but tasks are rotated through many times a second.”
Time-sharing. We’ve heard of time-sharing. Like splitting a lake house with five other couples throughout the year. Everyone has the illusion of owning a lake house! But really, you’re all just going at different times.
And this is for single-core microprocessors. Those with one brain. You know who else has one brain? You and me. We can make a dual-core computer, but we haven’t developed a dual-brain baby yet. That kid will actually be able to multitask.
Now, I know what you might be thinking. Just because a computer doesn’t actually do more than one task at once, who says you can’t? After all, haven’t you ever brushed your teeth while taking off your socks, texted while driving, or answered emails on a conference call?
No.
You haven’t actually done any of those things.
You have taken tiny breaks from driving to text and you have taken tiny breaks from texting to drive. You have taken tiny breaks from brushing your teeth to remove your socks. You have taken tiny breaks from removing your socks to brush your teeth. Together, you may have accomplished all of it. But you have created only the illusion of multitasking.
As my friend Mike once told me, “Screwing up two things at the same time isn’t multitasking.”
Let’s look at one final quote about multitasking in a computer’s brain. This one comes from a white paper written by the company National Instruments:
“In the case of a computer with a single CPU core, only one task runs at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for that task. Multitasking solves the problem by scheduling which task may run at any given time and when another waiting task gets a turn. This act of reassigning a CPU from one task to another one is called a context switch. When context switches occur frequently enough, the illusion of parallelism is achieved.”
When context switches occur frequently enough, the illusion of parallelism is achieved.
The single greatest misconception of every employee is that they can multitask. That their brains can do two things at once. But they can’t. This is the illusion of parallelism. When jumping between many things is perfectly scheduled, everyone will think you’re actually doing two things at the same time. But you’re not. You’re simply scheduling them in. Have you ever seen anybody checking emails while pressing “mute” on a conference call? They aren’t listening to the call. But they said hello at the beginning and will “context switch” if anybody says their name. Like “Linda, what do you think of the proposal?” Suddenly Linda stops emailing and gives her two cents.
The illusion of parallelism is achieved.
Here’s what it looks like in a Dilbert cartoon.
Visit http://bit.ly/1UNMpGI for a larger version of this image.
Do you remember when doctors were the only ones with pagers? Sometimes they were on call and they carried their pagers around. Sometimes they weren’t on call and there was no way to reach them. If there was an emergency, the hospital would page the doctor and they’d drive over to deliver the baby or slice out the appendix. Emergency device for emergency situations. Then suddenly everyone had pagers. Then everyone had cell phones. Now everyone is accessible, any way, any time.
Do you remember when stores used to be closed on Sundays? It was family day. Church day. Quiet day. Nothing was open. You couldn’t get anything done. Neither could anyone else. Then a few stores started opening on Sundays. Others wanted to compete. Local laws changed. Online stores opened twenty-four hours a day.