WEBVTT - Reduce your toggling tax

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,

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<v Speaker 1>This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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<v Speaker 1>tip is to free up time for meaningful work by

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<v Speaker 1>reducing the time you spend switching between tasks. Today's tip

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<v Speaker 1>comes from an article in the Harvard Business Review about

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<v Speaker 1>what the authors call the toggling tax, that is the

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<v Speaker 1>time and energy that goes to switching between applications. You

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<v Speaker 1>probably know what I mean. You're in PowerPoint and realize

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<v Speaker 1>you need to look up a statistic, so you go

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<v Speaker 1>to the web. Your homepage is The New York Times,

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<v Speaker 1>so you quickly scan the latest headlines before searching for

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<v Speaker 1>the data you need. A few minutes later, you're back

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<v Speaker 1>in PowerPoint working on your presentation. When you get a

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<v Speaker 1>team's chat note offication, you switch over and quickly reply

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<v Speaker 1>to the message. Then, while you are already interrupted, you

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<v Speaker 1>figure you might as well pop into email to see

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<v Speaker 1>if there is anything urgent. Finally, you make it back

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<v Speaker 1>to PowerPoint. In just a few minutes, you have been

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<v Speaker 1>in PowerPoint, the New York Times wherever you got the

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<v Speaker 1>data you needed, PowerPoint again, then teams, then email, then

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<v Speaker 1>back to PowerPoint, and you probably repeat this sort of

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<v Speaker 1>sequence dozens of times per day. The authors of the

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<v Speaker 1>articles say this context switching takes a toll for starters,

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<v Speaker 1>it can increase stress, but beyond that, every switch takes

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<v Speaker 1>some amount of time. The authors use software to measure

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<v Speaker 1>how long it took for one hundred and thirty seven

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<v Speaker 1>workers across twenty teams to do the next step after toggling,

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<v Speaker 1>in other words, to get used to the initial application

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<v Speaker 1>again and figure out where they were and what comes next.

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<v Speaker 1>They found that it took just over two seconds per

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<v Speaker 1>switch to reorient and re engage, and that people switched

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<v Speaker 1>contexts almost twelve hundred times per day. That's a total

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<v Speaker 1>of almost four hours and a week of toggling tax,

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<v Speaker 1>or just shy of about a tenth of a standard

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<v Speaker 1>work week. Now, of course, you probably lose more time

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<v Speaker 1>than that in distractions, reading headlines, or deleting emails that

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<v Speaker 1>you didn't need to receive in the first place, but

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<v Speaker 1>the toggling tax alone can be substantial. If you are

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<v Speaker 1>trying to get more done at work and spend less

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<v Speaker 1>time at work so you've got time to do other things,

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<v Speaker 1>it pays to try to reduce your toggling tax. So

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<v Speaker 1>how do you do that. If you are managing people,

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<v Speaker 1>it would be smart to see what you can do

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<v Speaker 1>as a team to limit interruptions and set expectations. Maybe

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<v Speaker 1>you agree not to send each other messages for a

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<v Speaker 1>few hours during the day unless it is absolutely urgent.

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<v Speaker 1>But even if you are just in charge of you,

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<v Speaker 1>awareness helps notice when you switch contexts and consider whether

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<v Speaker 1>the switch is truly necessary. In some cases, you may

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<v Speaker 1>be able to postpone and batch some of your switches.

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<v Speaker 1>For instance, if you are working on a report and

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<v Speaker 1>need to incorporate content from another source, just put the

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<v Speaker 1>content you need in brackets such as number of sites

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<v Speaker 1>in twenty twenty four number of sites in twenty fourteen,

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<v Speaker 1>and highlight it so you can see it, or you

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<v Speaker 1>can use the publishing abbreviation t K for to come

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<v Speaker 1>as a placeholder. Then when you go to the app

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<v Speaker 1>that will provide the information you need, you can scan

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<v Speaker 1>through the document, collect all the information you need at once,

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<v Speaker 1>and enter it in the places where it belongs. I

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<v Speaker 1>also recommend minimizing apps you don't need and turning off notifications.

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<v Speaker 1>Out of sight is out of mind, So if you

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<v Speaker 1>don't know you have email, Slack teams or text messages,

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<v Speaker 1>you won't be tempted to switch over and process them.

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<v Speaker 1>Even if your workplace does expect a quick response, you

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<v Speaker 1>can probably be unplugged for at least a half hour

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<v Speaker 1>between message checks. That might eliminate a dozen or more toggles.

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<v Speaker 1>This time of year, no one needs a reminder that

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<v Speaker 1>there are some taxes we have to pay, but the

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<v Speaker 1>toggling tax is not one of them. Or if we

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<v Speaker 1>do have to switch contexts, at least we have some

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<v Speaker 1>control over our toggling tax rate. If you can reduce

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<v Speaker 1>your toggling tax by half, you may be able to

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<v Speaker 1>free up a couple of hours a week for your

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<v Speaker 1>most important work or for doing something besides work. Either

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<v Speaker 1>of those sounds like a welcome tax break to me.

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<v Speaker 1>In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks for listening, and

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<v Speaker 1>here's to making the most of our our time. Thanks

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<v Speaker 1>for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,

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<v Speaker 1>or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura

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<v Speaker 1>vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.

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