I know that I’m a killjoy. I’m sorry, but please stop saying you’re a multitasker as if you’re proud of it. Multitasking is a lie. You are only broadcasting your lack of understanding of how productivity works. While it may be harsh to hear, scientifically, it is the truth.
Your brain cannot multitask the way you think it can, and uses more time and resources to do so. This is because your mind is forced to take the time to switch in-between tasks and to refocus and concentrate, which takes time that could have been used more beneficially.
Unfortunately, many organizations have adopted this widely misunderstood and popular term to find the workers or employees that are willing to overwork themselves and do tasks that usually require two or more people—ultimately saving them money. However, productivity is undoubtedly lacking, and there are many more reasons to stop this bad habit. Again, multitasking is a lie.
Here are four common reasons why multitasking is a lie:
- Promotes More Mistakes and Poor Choices
- When you multitask, you are not providing your brain the time it needs to filter out irrelevant information. Which, in turn, creates shoddy quality work, more mistakes, and possible injuries that directly harm your productivity and reputation or trustworthiness as a business.
- Promotes Anxiety and Poor Health
- Studies prove that the more you do it, the more harm you are causing to your brain. One of the most common reasons for multitasking is a lack of efficiently setting time limits, causing you to speed and increasing anxiety to get it all done. Often the process of going back and forth can be overwhelming as you try to relearn information too. Everyone knows that being in a constant state of anxiety will only cause more harm than good.
- Inhibits Innovation and Creativity
- Multitasking kills your ability to fully concentrate and focus, blocking your ability to be creative. Innovation and creativity are vital to a successful business as, obviously, if everyone had the same business idea, no one or only a select few can make money.
- You Can’t Enjoy the Process
- Just because it is business and requires work doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be enjoying it. Sure, there will be tasks or tedious things that are not enjoyable all the time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something to change it and make it more enjoyable for you. The more you personalize your business, the happier and more passionate you will be about it. Since perception is reality, if you feel more successful, you are more successful. When you are so glad and love something, you won’t want to let it go.
As you can see, multitasking is a lie — only harming you and your productivity. Instead, break down your work into similar categories and only work each task alone. As you continue to do this, you will see just how much better your work gets and how much more free time you really have in the end.
Why is Multi-Tasking a Lie?
Everyone thinks they’re good multitaskers. But, the truth is, no one is good at multitasking. Once again — multitasking is a lie. The human brain is not designed for it. Sure, we can chew gum, walk and talk and so forth, but when your brain needs to focus on a task such as reading, driving, learning, writing and that type of thing, it’s not a good idea to try to multitask.
- There Is No Such Thing as Multitasking
- The truth is, what we call multitasking is really what is termed “task switching”. This means that you can go back and forth between tasks such as watching TV and reading, for example, but you’re not really doing both at the same time.
- Trying It Causes You to Be Slow
- When you don’t give 100% of your focus to the task at hand, it will take longer. Try it for yourself. The next time you need to get something done, set a timer for 30 minutes. Do only that task. Don’t watch TV, check your phone or anything. Then do the same task again for the same amount of time while also doing something else and you’ll see that you get more done.
- It Causes You to Make Mistakes
- When you multitask, you can make mistakes. What if your surgeon was texting while doing surgery? As ludicrous as this sounds, so many people think they’re able to text and drive. In many cases, multitasking is deadly; in other cases it just causes you to make unneeded mistakes.
- It Causes Inaccuracies
- Need to do your taxes? Pay attention to exactly what you’re doing and nothing else if you don’t want to make silly mistakes. The same can be said for cooking, changing the oil in your car or anything with steps to take that produce the desired results.
- It Makes You Stressed
- When everything is taking too long, you make mistakes such as your taxes are inaccurate. And then you’re stressed out, of course. The stress can manifest itself into sickness, burnout, and worse.
- You’re Not Experiencing Life
- One of the saddest parts of multitasking is that the people who do it are missing out on experiencing life. They miss weddings, family dinners, and other intimate relationships due to always trying to do more than one thing at a time.
- It Increases Problems with Memory
- When you have too much going on, it can lead to information overload, which can cause problems with your memory. Your brain essentially starts filtering information incorrectly, which causes everything to have the same weight of importance. This causes you to forget.
- It Affects Your Relationships
- If you’ve had even one person tell you that you’re on your phone too much, listen to them. That means everyone you know probably thinks you aren’t present during important times. They start to think you don’t care about them, and you won’t be able to build long-term intimate relationships if you don’t take the time to focus on them.
- It Makes You Fat
- Believe it or not, multitasking may be to blame for the fact that over 60% of the population is overweight. When you eat and watch TV, eat and work, eat and drive, you’re not focused on the activity of eating, so you miss the cues that let you know when you’re full.
- You Can’t Really Do It
- As mentioned before, no one is really multitasking. (It’s a lie!) They just switch from one task to another. Since it’s not possible to do more than one thing at a time, stop trying. Give yourself enough time to do each thing without interference, and you’ll improve the quality of your life tremendously.
Additionally, attempting multitasking will ruin your creativity and take the joy from the things you like to do. Life is a series of events that you should take the time to enjoy and soak in, even if it’s data entry or reading a dry school book. You’ll get more out of your life if you start trying to focus on one thing at a time so that you do your best and feel good about it.
Is It Possible to Multitask and Be Productive?
Multitasking is often thought of as a productivity booster. After all, if you can do two things at once, you should be able to get twice as much done, right? Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. In fact, studies have shown that multitasking can actually make you less productive. And that’s definitely not the goal!
So why does multitasking have such a negative effect on productivity? Simply put, our brains are wired for us to be monotaskers (single taskers) – meaning we can only focus on one task at a time. In fact, only 2-3% of the population can multitask effectively. Rather than doing two things at once, what most people consider multitasking is really doing individual tasks in rapid succession (hence, the fact that multitasking is a lie). And whether we realize it or not, it takes time to switch between tasks. Every time you switch tasks, your brain has to adjust to the new information. This process, known as task switching, can take up to 40% longer than if you had just focused on one task at a time.
Not only does multitasking actually take longer in the end, but it can also hinder your performance. When our brain is constantly switching gears and bouncing back and forth between tasks, we are less efficient and more prone to making errors. This is even more likely when the tasks we are trying to juggle are complicated.
This may not seem like a big deal when you think about doing simple, routine tasks such as folding laundry while watching television, or reading a book while dinner is cooking. But multitasking can quickly become dangerous in more complex situations.
Simply put, multitasking divides our attention. It makes it incredibly difficult to focus all of our attention on one thing. For example, studies show that drivers who try to complete additional tasks while driving have poorer driving performance (which can be dangerous!). Other studies show that “media multitasking” (such as browsing social media while watching tv or listening to music while scrolling through emails) actually causes you to be less able to focus your attention even when you’re only doing one thing at a time!
Multitasking also impacts our ability to learn because effective learning requires focus. According to neuropsychologist Cynthia Kubu, PhD, “The more we multitask, the less we actually accomplish, because we slowly lose our ability to focus enough to learn. If we’re constantly attempting to multitask, we don’t practice tuning out the rest of the word to engage in deeper processing and learning.” Another study found that college students that tried to multitask actually took longer to complete their homework and had lower grades on average. Pretty sure that’s the opposite of what they were trying to achieve!
So, what’s the best way to boost productivity? The answer is simple: focus on one task at a time, and break those unproductive habits. Give your full attention to the task at hand and resist the urge to multitask. You’ll be surprised at how much more you can get done when you’re not trying to do too many things at once.
Frequently Asked Questions
Don’t lie to yourself about multi-tasking
Many people think that burning the candle at both ends means that they’re a productive person. But the truth is, being productive has nothing to do with being busy. Being productive means that you get things done that impact the goals that you have set for yourself, whether it’s your personal life or business life. One of the biggest killers in our society of productivity is multitasking. If you really want to work smarter, avoid multitasking.
- Eliminate Distractions – Whether it’s junk piled up around the house, or your desk is cluttered, or that television blazing all day — these distractions will prevent you from working at your highest capacity whether it’s mental or physical labor that you need to exert.
- Know Your Priorities – For every single goal you’ve made in life, you should have a list of priorities for each day so that you know what’s the most important thing to do that day. That way, if you get those 2 or 3 most essential things accomplished, it will impact your goals.
- Learn the Power of No – When you start learning the value of your time, it gets easier to say no. Make no, a habit. Say no before you say yes so that you have time to look at your schedule and weigh whether the new thing really ads to your life and helps you reach your goals or not.
- Schedule Everything – Calendars and schedules are your best tactic for controlling your time. Put everything from that hot soaking bath you want to take to reading bedtime stories to your kids in your calendar around your work tasks because that way, you can ensure you’re also living a balanced life as you become more productive.
- Set Aside Time to Do Each Task – When you schedule each thing, don’t lie to yourself about how long it takes. It probably takes 15 minutes to make your bed, but about 30 minutes to read bedtime stories. If something takes four hours, give yourself four hours so that you really do have a chance to achieve your goals.
- Use the Right Tools for Each Task – One time saving and productivity tip that stands out for everyone is that you need to use the right tools for a task. If you use the right tools and resources, you’ll end up finishing faster and more accurately.
- Use Systems and Processes – When you set up processes, and use systems in your daily life, and not just work-related things – you’ll find that your productivity increases exponentially. Check your mail the same each day, create habits around eating right, exercising, and working, and it’ll all start to feel natural and simple.
- Practice Mindfulness – The ability to truly experience each part of your life is why you want to become more mindful. Be aware of precisely what you are doing and feeling right now and stop thinking about what happens later.
Knowing what you want to achieve and how you’re going to get there is as important as setting up the habits, systems, and processes to ensure success. Working smarter requires that you understand that multitasking is not something anyone can do. It’s all a myth. You’ll do so much better and be so much more productive if you work smarter by avoiding multitasking.
Single Tasking – Deprioritize Non-Essential Tasks to Know What’s Important
Proper time management skills, high productivity, and achieving your goals all require knowing when and how to deprioritize. Just because you do everything or are extremely busy every day does not mean you are being most productive or will be successful one day.
Efficiency and high productivity stem from understanding that the effort you put in should equal the same or more output. Every time you work, if your actions don’t chip away at your tasks helping you reach your goals, you are not the most productive – you’re just busy.
The following tips will help you learn to deprioritize the right tasks so you can run a more successful business:
- Goals First Tasks Later – In other words, when you create your daily to-do list, you should keep in mind your goals first. For example, don’t organize your day to leave easy tasks last unless it makes sense for your business and overall plan for that day. Think about your most important goal, then organize your actions or tasks around it.
- Understand the Value of Your Time – Twenty-four hours a day may seem like a lot when you look at it numerically, but it goes by quite fast in realistic terms. For eight hours, you need to sleep, and then you only get sixteen hours left to share between work, friends, family, fun experience, and your life. You can’t be bogged down constantly by things that don’t matter when you don’t have that much time to spare between everything and everyone. Highlight the essential tasks that get you closer to your dreams. Learn when to say no. Remember, you are missing opportunities when you spend all your time on one thing.
- Start with The Most Obvious – What brings you pain, discomfort, and anxiety? Are there people in your life that only bring you stress and frustration? Be sure the answers to these questions are not the first thing you are trying to do each day. For example, if a friend only keeps you distracted from your goals, stop going to breakfast with them every morning or being around them in general. They are not worth your time and value. If you know checking emails, first thing in the morning will throw off your whole day, leave them for last or outsource it. Just because you put something at the bottom of your list doesn’t mean you can’t get back to it eventually or let someone else handle it.
In the end, if you want to have more time to focus on the things that truly matter to you, then take a moment to evaluate each area of your life and make sure your focus is on the right priorities. Start with your calendar right now. Are they a good use of your time?
How to Avoid Multitasking = Single Tasking
You know what multitasking is: doing multiple things at once. Chances are, you think it’s pretty productive. But the opposite is actually true: when you try to multitask, you often wind up taking longer to complete any single task, and you’re not doing your best work for any of those tasks. This is because multitasking spreads your energy and your attention. You’re consistently aware of what else you’re trying to do. Instead, try single tasking.
What is Single Tasking?
Single tasking, like the name suggests, means focusing on a single task at a time. The way you do this is by minimizing interruptions. You’re free to direct your entire attention to the one task, which means you complete it more efficiently. Often, this means the final product is higher quality than it would be when you multitask.
Minimizing distractions is easier said than done, however. If you’re the type who often checks your phone, even when there’s no alert for new messages, you might need to turn it off or keep it in another room. Similarly, when you log on to your computer, you need to make sure to keep your email closed and stop yourself from opening Facebook or Reddit in a background tab.
Using it to Your Benefit
Single tasking may be easier when you know when you’ll have a chance to check your email or social media site, however. Studies suggest that taking a short break every 90 minutes help you to be more productive. During those breaks, you can give in to the urge to check all your alerts. But then you need to return your full attention to the task at hand.
More Tips to Consider
Another tip to becoming more productive is to write everything down. Don’t rely on your memory if you want to make sure to finish every task on your to-do list. Of course, you don’t have to use a pencil and notebook. You can make memos on your phone or in your Google Calendar to keep yourself accountable. Making note also takes off the pressure, so you don’t have to remember everything you need to do.
You can set up your day beforehand, so you’ll know exactly what you’re doing during every 90-minute block. Doing this allows you to set up your workspace and ensure you have everything you need to complete those tasks. Then, when you’re ready, you start with a single task and see it through until it’s complete.
But how do you know what to do? You need to prioritize. What needs to be done now? What can wait? Some things are more time-sensitive, such as the article with the looming deadline.
It might take time to get into the headspace of single tasking, but the results will speak for themselves.