In one study, designers were tasked with creating a banner ad with one of 2 processes.
Half were instructed to design “one ad at a time” – receiving feedback after each new design each time – 5 feedback yielding a total of 6 ads.
The other half of designers were asked to use “a simultaneous process” – each one started with 3 ads and received feedback on all finally whittling it down to 1 ad.
All of the designers finally created the same number of ads [6] and received the same number of feedback [5].
The only difference was the process – simultaneous vs one at a time.
As it turned out, process mattered a great deal – the simultaneous designers’ ads were judged superior and earned higher click through rates
Why?
[1] Since simultaneous participants received feedback on multiple items, they were more likely to analyze critique side by side. In other words, they were multi-tracking and learning something useful.
[2] Multi-tracking has another unexpected advantage – it feels better. Asked to rate feedback – 80% of multi track designers found it helpful vs 35%.
Key take-away – People who work on a single track begin to take their work too personally and view criticism of their only option.
So one way of not taking your work too seriously (and be better at it) is to not make work the only thing you do in life 🙂
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Making better choices – Multitracking
Book – Decisive, Chip and Dan Heath