When Too Much Can Be Too Little

First, we must accept that men (and especially me) are not the best at multi-tasking.  An experience last week really drove this point home.  

I was in the office working on an expansion project.  In a period of approximately 10 minutes, I had (all within the 10 minutes) my business phone ringing, my cell phone text vibration going off, my twitter account notifying me about a direct message (and my email account also notifying me), a LinkedIn red button on the tab, and a Facebook message notification (that one was personal).  Each one of these is the preferred messaging vehicle a client or family/friend prefers to use.  So count them, five separate notifications.  I suspect I got an email too.  

Since they are all valued clients/customers or friend (Facebook), I respond with their preferred messaging vehicle.  But at what point is too many communicating options actually diluting my ability to adequately answer.  And when do the notifications become a distraction.  That is why I do not take phones into business meetings.  And why my family will tell me to put my phone down when we are trying to have a discussion. And yes, I know, I do not need to immediately answer each one or in all honesty, any of them. 

Consider this, approximately 10 years ago, you had two or three options.  An email account, a business phone, and a cell (if you were deemed important enough to be issued one).  You seldom got a call on your cell, because that was considered an emergency. 

I do not bring this up to show that I am immensely popular, I am not. Nor that I am in great demand because of my intellectual ability, I am not.  Rather, it is a shock when you get so many communications in such a short span of time. This is the first time it happen to me and I was somewhat surprised and for a moment, overwhelmed.  

In fact, it made me think.  I have five instruments for communication - personal cell, home phone, business phone, business cell, and business computer.  I do not include my personal computer. 
If you take the different vehicles for of all of them, I have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Salesforce, personal email, personal phone texting, personal cell call, home phone call, business email, business phone texting, business phone call, business cell call,. I count 13.  

If I were popular, I cannot quite imagine how I could manage all of these.  So how many do you have? 

As I reflect on this this post, it occurs to me that this may not necessarily be bad.  My family communicates with different mediums. My clients have clear preferences in what they choose.  I am comfortable in using all of them. In fact, each one has strengths and weaknesses.   As my mentor would say, always consider the alternative - that no one communicates with you.