“What do you think, John?”

“Uh, could you repeat the question?’

We’ve all been there, whether at an in-person meeting or a teleconference, when “John” has been physically present but busy scrolling through email on his Blackberry.  He thinks he is fully capable of doing both, that he is actually more productive this way, until he has to become fully engaged and finds out he missed the thread.

John has now compromised the productivity of the other attendees.  He not only needs the question repeated by often a recap of the discussion leading up to the question. 

Entrepreneur Magazine wrote about the company, Adaptive Path, that decided to ban technology from those meetings where important decisions were being made.  Leading up to this decision, they had found that employees working their mobile devices and checking email on laptops were only partially present at the meeting.  The end result was that meetings were not as productive as they should have been and therefore led to even more meetings.

Instead of adding to creativity and decision-making, the use of these devices can actually be undermining those factors.  Yet it can be traumatic when such a policy is first instituted, until participants see the resulting increase in productivity and reduction in time allotted for meetings.

This relates back to the research showing that when we are trying to do 2 things at once, especially using the same brain region, we are slower than if we focus on one thing and then switch to another.  Time management training will help with the tools and techniques that can limit the need to multitask.