ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Paolo Cardini - Designer
Paolo Cardini is a product designer who asks serious questions about how we live -- and answers them with whimsical and playful designs.

Why you should listen

Paolo Cardini likes asking some important questions about the way we live, like: Does multitasking actually help us become more efficient? How far will social networking go? Who are the players in the myriad conflicts in the Arab world? What is the next frontier in product development? -- and trying to answer them with playful designs, like his I Like Sit chaise lounge, which updates your Facebook status depending on your position, and MiddleField, a foosball table depicting different players in the Middle East. For TEDGlobal 2012 Cardini created a unique product called the MONOtask project. To help you deal with your overly multitasked life, Cardini has designed 3D-printed smartphone covers that "downgrade" your phone to be much dumber. Download your own cover plans and start monotasking >>

Cardini is currently an MFA Design Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar.

More profile about the speaker
Paolo Cardini | Speaker | TED.com

TEDGlobal 2012

Paolo Cardini: Forget multitasking, try monotasking

Filmed: 2012-06-27

2,609,537 views

People don't just cook anymore -- they're cooking, texting, talking on the phone, watching YouTube and uploading photos of the awesome meal they just made. Designer Paolo Cardini questions the efficiency of our multitasking world and makes the case for -- gasp -- "monotasking."

Paolo Cardini - Designer
Paolo Cardini is a product designer who asks serious questions about how we live -- and answers them with whimsical and playful designs. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

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I'm a designer and an educator.

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I'm a multitasking person, and I push my students

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to fly through a very creative, multitasking design process.

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But how efficient is, really, this multitasking?

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Let's consider for a while the option of monotasking.

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A couple of examples.

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Look at that.

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This is my multitasking activity result. (Laughter)

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So trying to cook, answering the phone, writing SMS,

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and maybe uploading some pictures

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about this awesome barbecue.

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So someone tells us the story about supertaskers,

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so this two percent of people who are able

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to control multitasking environment.

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But what about ourselves, and what about our reality?

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When's the last time you really enjoyed

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just the voice of your friend?

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So this is a project I'm working on,

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and this is a series of front covers

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to downgrade our super, hyper —

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(Laughter) (Applause)

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to downgrade our super, hyper-mobile phones

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into the essence of their function.

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Another example: Have you ever been to Venice?

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How beautiful it is to lose ourselves in these little streets

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on the island.

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But our multitasking reality is pretty different,

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and full of tons of information.

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So what about something like that

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to rediscover our sense of adventure?

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I know that it could sound pretty weird to speak about mono

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when the number of possibilities is so huge,

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but I push you to consider the option of

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focusing on just one task,

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or maybe turning your digital senses totally off.

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So nowadays, everyone could produce his mono product.

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Why not? So find your monotask spot

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within the multitasking world.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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Translated by Joseph Geni
Reviewed by Thu-Huong Ha

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Paolo Cardini - Designer
Paolo Cardini is a product designer who asks serious questions about how we live -- and answers them with whimsical and playful designs.

Why you should listen

Paolo Cardini likes asking some important questions about the way we live, like: Does multitasking actually help us become more efficient? How far will social networking go? Who are the players in the myriad conflicts in the Arab world? What is the next frontier in product development? -- and trying to answer them with playful designs, like his I Like Sit chaise lounge, which updates your Facebook status depending on your position, and MiddleField, a foosball table depicting different players in the Middle East. For TEDGlobal 2012 Cardini created a unique product called the MONOtask project. To help you deal with your overly multitasked life, Cardini has designed 3D-printed smartphone covers that "downgrade" your phone to be much dumber. Download your own cover plans and start monotasking >>

Cardini is currently an MFA Design Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar.

More profile about the speaker
Paolo Cardini | Speaker | TED.com

THE ORIGINAL VIDEO ON TED.COM

Paolo Cardini: Forget multitasking, try monotasking | TED Talk | TED.com