McKinsey Quarterly calls for new working norms

"Always-on, multitasking work environments are killing productivity, dampening creativity and making us unhappy," writes the highly esteemed McKinsey Quarterly in the January 2011 edition.

The article continues: "In a recent study participants who completed tasks in parallel took up to 30 percent longer and made twice as many errors."

This is highly counterproductive for organizational performance. Something needs to be done.

Changing this "requires a tremendous amount of self-discipline, and we can't do it alone: in our teams and across the whole organization, we need to establish a set of norms that support s more productive way of working."

You can read or download the full article here (PDF, 255Kb). To download it, right-click the link and click "Save target as...".

Study on the benefits of multitasking finds there are none

One of the most provocative findings about the way we use our attention at work comes from a recent study at Stanford University. The study investigated the benefits of multitasking – shifting the attention frequently between a few different tasks– and found that there are no benefits to multitasking.

There are a lot of downsides, though. To learn more, watch this video about the experiment:

Mindfulness Training Increases Grey-Matter Density in the Hippocampus

Researchers from Harvard University, among others, have for the first time documented that mindfulness training leads to increases in grey-matter density in the hippocampus, an area responsible for learning and memory. They also observed a decreased density in the amygdala, which is responsible for our anxiety and stress, 'fight-or-flight' responses.

Check out the paper at ScienceDirect.com.

New CBMT Research from University Hospital of Copenhagen

Neurobiological Reseaarch Unit from University Hospital of Copenhagen has conducted research on Potential Projects Corporate-Based Mindfulness Training program. Amongst others they documented significant decrease in stress and significant improvement in sleep quality for the participants in the program.