March 6, 2012 • Volume 3, Issue 5 • ISSN: 2154-3240

In This Issue

♦	Feature Article: The Myth of Multitasking
♦	Ask Amanda: What can we do about a team member who wears their heart on their sleeve?
♦	Practical Tips: LinkedIn^® FYI

The Myth of Multitasking

Most people, especially women, believe that they are excellent multitaskers. This belief can get you into a situation where you become overwhelmed and stressed out very quickly. Technology and the media encourage us to think we can do several things at once but the facts say differently. They indicate that people aren’t as good at multitasking as we would like to believe. How can this research be reconciled with what we see in our own lives on a daily basis?

The distinction lies in the process. We don’t do a lot of things simultaneously; we switch our attention from task to task extremely quickly. We answer emails while on conference calls, surf the web while listening to our friends, and listen to the radio while working.
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	A confused mind always says no.

Practical Tips:
LinkedIn^® FYI

It’s a smart idea to keep your LinkedIn^® profile up to date. The service will notify your network each time you update your profile, which helps keep you top-of-mind with your connections. However, if you’re going to update your profile in stages, you’ll want to turn off the notification feature until you’re done–otherwise your network will get multiple notifications. To turn off this feature, go to Settings (top right in the drop-down menu under your name) and choose “Select who can see your Activity feed.”
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I have a fantastic team member who always looks stressed and frantic, which makes people think she can't handle things—and that is far from the truth. This is starting to cause problems because people are making up stories about how she feels. What can we do? D.B., New York, NY

Your question is an important reminder that people use body language (which includes facial expressions) more than any other quality (55%) when determining a person’s credibility. I would take her aside and have a conversation about how perception very quickly can become reality.
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Recommended Resources

Exercise helps relieve stress, improve your mood and your ability to learn. For all you runners (and walkers!) check out this handy online tool: Map My Run.

Our “Optimizing Your LinkedIn^® Profile” webinar was a huge success! If you know someone who would benefit from watching it, please forward them this link! (Heck, just send them the entire ezine!)

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About Us: Our Corporate Life LLC (OCL) is a company that offers a new system for reducing unnecessary workplace suffering caused by the organizational, interpersonal, and ethical issues of our time. It is founded on the belief that adhering to core human values and achieving business success are always compatible. Working with both companies and individuals, OCL helps create solutions that enable corporate employees at every level to optimize profits while enabling them to thrive in the corporate environment. OCL was founded by Amanda Mitchell to help meet the needs of people working in corporate America during this transformative moment in our nation's history. The OCL system reflects her experience and insight gained from a 20–year corporate career working with Fortune 500 companies, and as an executive coach to senior–level corporate executives.