Multitasking has been widely recognized as an important skill in today’s fast paced and competitive business environment. By completing multiple tasks simultaneously, the idea is that one can do more with less time and in the process withstand the multiple interruptions and pressures of the modern workplace.

However, new research indicates that multitasking not only results in the loss of time, but it reduces our overall effectiveness and the accuracy of our work. It turns out that the busyness associated with switching back and forth between tasks reduces the valuable self-talk and mental processing time we actually need to make good decisions. Rather than saving us time and money, multitasking can represent as much as a 40% reduction in our overall productivity. That’s not very efficient.

While channel surfing, reading a magazine and eating a snack on the couch at home is harmless, reducing your productivity at work by 40% could leave you out of a job. The next time you’re tempted to email, voicemail and rehearse a presentation all at once, think about the benefit of focusing on each task separately until they’re complete. It’s about going slow to go fast.

Sometimes the patterns of our interaction with colleagues can take an unproductive turn. In some cases, a tit-for-tat response pattern can develop that leads to poor communication, defensive behavior, and ineffective collaboration over time.

If you find yourself in one of these unhealthy patterns, it can be helpful to look for the triggers that send things into the unwanted direction.

Our responses to micro-aggressions or triggers may not be wanted or even conscious, though they often surface with a force of will all their own. Without delving too deeply into the psychology of triggers, here’s a simple way to define triggers in the workplace: the attitudes, words (spoken and unsaid), and actions that spark a predictable response based on a past experience.

Although sometimes they feel like they have a hold on us, once the context and nature of triggers are identified, we gain room to assess our knee-jerk reactions and seek alternative choices that are more aligned with our goals.

If you are in this boat, think about the following questions:

1. When are you more likely to be triggered into the pattern of ineffective behavior (e.g. high stress level, etc.)?
2. Is your response to the trigger proportional to the circumstance (or is it more intense)?
3. What is fueling this pattern and making it a consistent part of your experience at work?

Once you get a clearer definition of the kinds of inciting behaviors that are in the mix, you can send the invitation to others involved to “waive the white flag and hold a trigger truce.”

The goal of a trigger truce is to clear the air, stop reacting, and to notice how the quality of the interactions changes as a result of stopping the pattern of behavior

Here is an excerpt of a helpful piece by Jen Uscher. Read her whole story here:

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If you’re feeling overworked and finding it more challenging than ever to juggle the demands of your job and the rest of your life, you’re not alone.

“A lot of people are having a more difficult time finding balance in their lives because there have been cutbacks or layoffs where they work. They’re afraid it may happen to them, so they’re putting in more hours,” says psychologist Robert Brooks, PhD, co-author of The Power of Resilience: Achieving Balance, Confidence, and Personal Strength in Your Life.

“But even if you don’t have much control over the hours you have to work, you can ask yourself: In what other ways am I bringing greater enjoyment into my life?” Brooks says. “Focus your time and attention on things you can control.”

Here are five ways to bring a little more balance to your daily routine:

1. Build downtime into your schedule.

When you plan your week, make it a point to schedule time with your family and friends and activities that help you recharge.

If a date night with your spouse or a softball game with friends is on your calendar, you’ll have something to look forward to and an extra incentive to manage your time well so you don’t have to cancel.

“It helps to be proactive about scheduling,” says Laura Stack, a productivity expert in Denver and author of SuperCompetent: The Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best. “When I go out with my girlfriends, we all whip out our cell phones and put another girls’ night out on the calendar for one month later,” she says.

Stack also plans an activity with her family — like going to a movie or the park — every Sunday afternoon. “We do this because if there’s nothing on the schedule, time tends to get frittered away and the weekend may end without us spending quality time together,” she says.

Michael Neithardt, an actor and television commercial producer in New York City, wakes up three hours before he has to leave for work so he can go for a run and spend some time with his wife and baby.

“A lot of my friends tend to wake up, shower, and go straight to work. And they often complain about having no time to do anything,” he tells WebMD in an e-mail. “I find that if I can get those three hours in the morning, I have a more productive and peaceful workday. I can sure tell the difference when I don’t.”

Read the rest here at WebMD:

In his book The Halo Effect, Phil Rosenzweig elaborates on a common barrier to learning and performance in the workplace. While there can be several types of “Halo Effects,” essentially the barrier occurs when we make specific positive evaluations about traits based on a general impressions. Meaning, when we consider a person “good, likeable and successful.” in one area, we likely assume that they also possesses similar “good, likeable and successful” traits and qualities in other areas. A social example might be judging an attractive person as more intelligent. A workplace example would be, if we really like the CEO of a company and we see the firm attain great financial results, we might conclude that the company’s leadership is the reason for the firm’s success. In reality, the factors contributing to the firm’s financial outcomes may be unrelated to either the leadership style or strategy implemented by the CEO.

Without going into too much detail, the reason that Halos are all around us is because of our cognitive bias, or the tendency to quickly take in vast amounts of data and to take short cuts in sorting what is important from what is not. While this tendency to generalize has helped humans survive lots of physical danger (that rustling noise might be a tiger in the bushes), it also creates many cognitive problems for those seeking great decisions based on nuanced information.

To avoid the adverse impacts of the Halo Effect, I recommend developing a brief checklist prior to implementing important decisions about individuals and teams. This list could include questions that force us to review the assumptions that we may have left unchecked throughout our process, including:

• What conclusion(s) did I have to accept to arrive at this decision?
• Can I trust these conclusions or should I double check for hidden assumptions?

1. Example: If somebody really excels in one area (e.g. creating awesome spreadsheets), does that mean that they will also be a good trainer?

• Where might there be Halos in and around this decision?
• What new information and data is required to make a better decision?

If we do this well, we can expose Halos and both elevate the level of discussion within our team and enhance our own capacity to think critically about the variables leading to a decision.

Each year more than $60 billion dollars is spent on training programs in and by organizations in the United States. At WHCS, we are going to be adding more training and development resources and we have to ask the question: will our time and resources be well spent? When people attend trainings, workshops, and retreats to address problems, will they take the new information, knowledge, and skills and implement them back in the workplace?

While we learn valuable new ideas and skills at these events, we often become quickly and painfully aware of the challenge of turning them into real changes. This gap between knowing and doing is something that must be understood and addressed if our resources spent on training and development is going to be worth the investment.

I use a simple formula to understand what the nature of the gap is:

new knowledge/skill + motivation to improve – internal/external obstacles = GAP

This equation illustrates the variables involved and it can be used in the form of questions to guide our thinking both before and after a training or other learning event. Questions like: How well do I understand the topic and how can I improve my knowledge of it? What is my current level of motivation and will that be sufficient when the initial excitement wanes? What are some obstacles to be aware of in changing behaviors or implementing change?

In addition to the above formula and questions, consider the following reminders as well:

Measure your goals on the substance of new knowledge and skill, not on excitement alone. We often experience a let down in motivation as we return to the “real world” and confront the obstacles to implementing new ideas and making real changes. Therefore, as we focus energy and attention on understanding and surrendering to the obstacles that could prevent us from “doing”, we are able to apply our motivation and excitement and keep our anticipated goals in proper perspective.

Start small and be specific. One of the biggest culprits of the “retreat letdown” or knowing-doing gap is the lofty expectation of how much new information/behavior can be implemented. Behavior change takes time and can best be accomplished in focused, incremental spurts. Start small, take one thing at a time and don’t give up.

Take a positive learning attitude. When you find obstacles to implementing new knowledge/skills, try to assess why the block is there. Avoid turning negative and becoming pessimistic.

Atul Gawande, professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, was watching the Wimbledon tennis tournament on television when he saw star Rafael Nadal’s coach urging him on from the sidelines.

If one of the world’s greatest tennis players has a coach, Gawande asked himself, why shouldn’t doctors and teachers? In an article for The New Yorker, Gawande argues that coaches can help anyone, in any profession.

Listen to the story here as he joins NPR’s Neal Conan to talk about the value of coaches and why he believes more people — even those who think they’ve perfected their craft — could benefit from coaching.