“If there are nine rabbits on the ground, if you want to catch one, just focus on one.”
Jack Ma
Have you ever tried to do two or even three things at once? Of course you have! We all have. We get so busy in life we have times when try to cram as much in as we can and go as fast as we can. Here are just a few of the reasons we may multitask:
- We feel rushed to get things done
- We feel like we have too much work to do and we can’t keep up
- We’re working under pressure
- We feel like doing two or three tasks will help us get done faster
- We’re proud that we can do more than one thing at a time
But multitasking is actually an illusion. Let’s say you’re sitting at your computer and you’re checking email and listening to voicemails at the same time. Or checking social media while on a phone call. It feels like you’re doing two things at once, but actually the brain can only perform brain stem functions at the same time. Think about: breathing, heart pumping and blood pressure regulation. You’re not sitting at your desk telling your heart to beat or telling yourself to breathe (unless maybe you’re stressed out or meditating). So what are we doing when we pull up a chair and pull up our email and dial into our voicemail to ‘read and listen’ at the same time. We’re switch tasking. Our brains are going very quickly between two different activities, giving us the illusion that we’re doing two things at once.
But switch tasking has a great potential to actually slow us down. We may:
- Make a mistake and have to redo or fix something = more time
- Work in a stressful and rushed manner = feels overwhelming
- Forget things, forget details = more time searcing or fixing
- Undivided focus = 57% gain in productivity (potentially)
- Multiply 2,080 hours (typical work year) by 20%
- Apply productivity gain of 57%
- Free up about 237 hours or almost 6 weeks/year!
Now let’s look at some solutions for multitasking:
- Work with complete focus for 96 minutes per day; 96 minutes is 20% of 8 hour workday
4 strategies to help you focus:
- Stay highly focused on high impact tasks: calling clients, blog, marketing, invoicing
- Eliminate interruptions-don’t check phone, email, shut your door
- Say, “Right Now I Am…” to keep yourself focused on the task at hand
- Ask yourself, “Is this the best use of my time?”
Another strategy is to try backgound tasking. This is doing two tasks at the same time that don’t compete for your attention or focus to your detriment.
Examples of background tasking:
- Folding laundry and listening to a speaker on Clubhouse
- Printing documents while working on a project
- Listening to a business podcast while going on a walk
Background tasking will help you knock out a couple of things without losing focus or making mistakes.
Wrap Up:
Two considerations to keep in mind when you multitask:
- You are actually switch tasking
- You are reducing your productivity
Make it your goal to work with total focus for 96 minutes/day which equals 20% of your 8-hour workday.
“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.”
Calvin Coolidge
