Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Boy, did I feel stupid. There it was in black and white. An item in the Wall Street Journal confirmed what many of us instinctively know – research shows that multitasking makes you less efficient, can cause memory loss and may just make you “stupider.”

This is a problem. On the business front, this is a time when employers have been asking their workers to do more, with less. On the home front, some boomers are entering the “sandwich generation,” taking care of both their children and elderly parents.

But just as there are things that employees can do, such as making a conscious effort to focus on one thing at a time, there are things employers can do, too. Job flexibility is a great help, and one way an employer can provide this is through telecommuting arrangements, the focus of this month’s hawaii e.biz feature.

It’s entirely appropriate at this point to give kudos to our parent company PacificBasin Communications LLC, which allows telecommuting on a case-by-case basis and also implemented a very progressive program called Personal Development Leave in 2002. Employees are given five days of paid leave to encourage individual creativity and growth. All personal development proposals must be approved by the company president and, upon completion of this leave, the employee must post a Web page on our Intranet to share his or her journey with other staffers.

I took my personal development leave in March, and helped to chaperone my daughter’s fourth grade class trip to the Big Island. This experience helped me grow in my knowledge of and appreciation for Hawaiiana and teaching best practices. It also strengthened my bond with my preteen. I came back richer, wiser and, hopefully, not as stupid. I’ll just have to watch my multitasking from here on.

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