A recent NYT article discusses multitasking and the impact of interruptions on the quality and speed of our work.
In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites.
"I was surprised by how easily people were distracted and how long it took them to get back to the task," said Eric Horvitz, a Microsoft research scientist and co-author, with Shamsi Iqbal of the University of Illinois, of a paper on the study that will be presented next month.
This should not be surprising - as any CS major knows, context switches are expensive. In this case, literally - as Matt suggests, someone is paying for those 18 minutes.
And the cost of interruption doesn't discriminate by age. Conventional wisdom is that younger people are good at multitasking, but according to the study that may not really be the case.
A group of 18- to 21-year-olds and a group of 35- to 39-year-olds were given 90 seconds to translate images into numbers, using a simple code.
The younger group did 10 percent better when not interrupted. But when both groups were interrupted by a phone call, a cellphone short-text message or an instant message, the older group matched the younger group in speed and accuracy.
“The older people think more slowly, but they have a faster fluid intelligence, so they are better able to block out interruptions and choose what to focus on,” said Martin Westwell, deputy director of the institute.
The challenge, then, is how to create an interruption-free work environment. Lifehacker readers provide a number of good tips. I'd add that communication and respect is key. If you see someone hunkered down in code, don't interrupt them. (And above all, ask Google before you ask a co-worker!).