“To do two things at once – is to do neither,” Roman philosopher Publilius Syrus wrote in 100 A.D., and modern science has been proving him right.
It’s been found that:
- People who multitask are less efficient than those who focus on one project at a time
- Managing two mental tasks at once reduces the brain power available for either task
- Trying to do two or three things at once, or in quick succession, can take longer than doing them one at a time
Turns out that our capacity to multi-task is far more limited than most of us think!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent the better part of my career multitasking – typing a proposal while talking on the phone, “listening” to a colleague while reading a report. Not only was that my main way of handling things, I was darn good at it – or so I thought.
Have you ever seen a performer balancing plates on the end of a stick? In order to keep the plates from falling to the ground he has to keep spinning each stick, but what happens when he can’t keep them all going? Usually one starts to wobble, then bumps into the one next to it and pretty soon they’ve all crashed to the ground. Now imagine that you’re the performer and all day, every day, you rush from plate to plate to keep them all going. Do you think that would get a little stressful? How effective are you with so many plates spinning?
The problem with multi-tasking is if that’s your main approach to your work or your life, you’ll frequently end up with too many plates spinning. Then the challenge is you can only touch each task long enough to keep it going, but usually not long enough to complete it adequately. And if you do stop to complete a specific task, the stress caused by ignoring the others can cause a less than satisfactory effort – and outcome – on the task you’re trying to complete. How many spinning plates are you attempting to manage each day? How many should you get rid of?
We’ve all heard of the 80/20 rule – 80 percent of our results come from 20% of our efforts. I think we all intuitively understand it, but we often fail to apply it. Let’s look at a typical work day. Assuming you work 8 hours a day, 20% of your time is 96 minutes. What if you developed the habit of spending 20% of your time each day – 96 minutes – focused on your top priorities? That’s an hour and a half of focused, uninterrupted time accomplishing your most important tasks or projects for the day. What if you started as early in the day as possible, and didn’t allow yourself to be interrupted or distracted by e-mail, ringing phones, your co-workers, or anything else for 96 minutes? What could you get done? How would that affect the rest of your day? Your week?
As author and speaker John Maxwell says, “The secret to your success is determined by your daily agenda. We over-exaggerate yesterday. We over-estimate tomorrow, and we under-estimate today.”
What actions are you taking today to offload your repetitive, time draining tasks? Technology? Personal discipline? How we spend our time each day is a matter of choice. Are your choices leading you closer to your goals?
