How To Stop Multitasking and Start Being Productive.

posted on Jun 19, 2020 |   433 likes

How To Stop Multitasking and Start Being Productive.

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Have you heard of people with the ability to multitask? Well, you have probably flaunted that ability in your resume too, “possess ability to multitask and work under minimal supervision,” sounds familiar?

But does multitasking really help you work smart and produce quality work? 

Let us take a closer look at some typical multitasking scenarios.

Handling client calls while sending emails, or talking with a coworker while finishing up a report? Sure, you have experienced or seen people do this.

Their goal is to ‘use one stone to kill two birds.’

But the real question is—are they really giving their full focus to any one of those tasks? 

Or literarily – are they really going to give any bird a headshot?

Well, not really.

Multitasking is not the same as being productive. As Steve Uzzell says in The One Thing, “Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.”

So, what is wrong with multitasking?

Number 1: You Lose Sight Of The Important Things. 

The human brain is designed to focus on one thing at a time, so bombarding it with too much information at once will only slow it down.

As MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller notes, “When people think they’re multitasking, they’re just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost.” 

By multitasking, we toggle our brains between several tasks, initializing processes, stopping halfway, picking up another process and trying to continue from where you stopped and the loop continues.

This constant task-switching triggers a dopamine response in the brain – and this encourages us to keep switching between tasks to gain this feeling of instant gratification.

Ultimately this leads to a dangerous feedback loop that gives you an illusion that you’re accomplishing a ton aka ‘fake productivity.’ In reality? You’ve not done much at all or at least nothing that’s required some critical thinking.

Number 2: You Lower Your Efficiency 

Doing too many things at once, divides your attention – and this makes it easy to get distracted and lose focus on completing tasks efficiently.

What’s more, multitasking makes it difficult to remember things as your brain is shifting functions that lead to loss of efficiency.

Ultimately, you’ll end up missing your targets despite hitting longer hours because you’re inefficient.

Number 3: You Feel Burned Out 

Know any multitasking guru?  they are always burned out, they always have a stressful day, finish work late or carry work over.

Toggling in between tasks a.k.a multitasking isn’t what our brain was built to do, so forcing it to learn this skill will only cause it more harm than good.

A study at the University Of London revealed that multitaskers experience significant IQ drops. What’s more, these drops are the same as those experienced from losing a night of sleep.

It’s no surprise multitasking increases the production of cortisol, a hormone that causes stress.

After all, you’ll be working tirelessly, making more errors than usual, and taking much longer than average (a sure-fire way to burn out.)

How To Stop Multitasking and Start Being Productive.

Manage Work By The Week 

The reason many people multitask is because there seems to be so many things to do with no clear mapping of tasks to timelines.

The idea of managing work by the week is, once you organize your workload, you have everything laid out for you. So now you’re spending more time doing as opposed to thinking about what to do next.

On another note, breaking work by the week helps create a sense of urgency that will, in turn, motivate you or your team to get working and meet immediate KPIs.

Create A Distraction-Free Environment

Distractions are terrible when you’re trying to implement mindfulness as they make it harder to adopt a laser-sharp focus.  

For this reason, it’s essential to create a distraction-free environment that’s free from any potential interruptions.

Here are a few actionable ways to help you create a distraction-free environment:

• Audit your behavior and find what triggers your distractions (think: social media, coworker, etc.).
• Once you find the root cause, eliminate it from your workplace.
• Find a quiet place to work that is free from intrusions.

In conclusion

Not totally ignoring the fact that emergency work tasks can spring up from anywhere as business needs change daily. 

The Idea is to be able to assign priorities to your tasks regardless of when they come in and give it the needed attention to complete it to perfection then move on to the next.

Jumping from one task to another in an unstructured way isn’t going to get you anywhere.

Think of approaching multiple tasks from the perspective of prioritizing rather than ‘multitasking.’ 

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