Forget multitasking, try monotasking

People aren’t just cooking 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." His charming 3D-printed smartphone covers just might help.

I'm a designer and an educator.

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

to fly through a very creative, multitasking design process.

But how efficient is, really, this multitasking?

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

A couple of examples.

Look at that.

This is my multitasking activity result. (Laughter)

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

and maybe uploading some pictures

about this awesome barbecue.

So someone tells us the story about supertaskers,

so this two percent of people who are able

to control multitasking environment.

But what about ourselves, and what about our reality?

When's the last time you really enjoyed

just the voice of your friend?

So this is a project I'm working on,

and this is a series of front covers

to downgrade our super, hyper —

(Laughter) (Applause)

to downgrade our super, hyper-mobile phones

into the essence of their function.

Another example: Have you ever been to Venice?

How beautiful it is to lose ourselves in these little streets

on the island.

But our multitasking reality is pretty different,

and full of tons of information.

So what about something like that

to rediscover our sense of adventure?

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

when the number of possibilities is so huge,

but I push you to consider the option of

focusing on just one task,

or maybe turning your digital senses totally off.

So nowadays, everyone could produce his mono product.

Why not? So find your monotask spot

within the multitasking world.

Thank you.

(Applause)