Multitasking is making you LESS Productive

Multitasking is making you less productive. Most people think that by multitasking, we are getting more things done. But there is actually a hard cost when we switch between two things or more at the same time. This is called context switching was developed by Gerald Weinberg at UCSD in the early 90’s.

Utilizing our time effectively is important ESPECIALLY when we are just starting out in our business.

If you are thinking “I am great at multitasking” then consider this. A Stanford study conducted in 2009 found that people who self identified as high multitaskers were actually worse at it. Meaning they couldn’t pay attention, switch tasks or control their memory as well as people who self identified as liking to stick to one task at a time.

So, how bad is it?

So say you were working on 1 project for 10 hours. You would have 10 hours and zero time lost to context switching. 

With 2 projects at the same time you would think okay great that is 5 hours for one and 5 hours for the other but what really happens is that context switching GRABS 20% of that time that we don’t get back.

The reason is there a re calibration that needs to happen. Getting back into that flow state. Because when you are working in the “zone”, when you stop yourself it takes 12 minutes roughly on concentrated work on one thing to get back into that state. So you really only have 4 hours for one and 4 for the other.

So the obvious question is, how do we fix that?

You don’t need to work more, just change the way you’re working. As long as YOU OWN YOUR DAY, schedule your day according to the tasks that are the most important and you need to get finished first.

PLAN: Take Sunday or Monday morning before your week has begun to plan out which tasks are the most important for that week and break them out day by day. You’ll know which are the most important tasks based on where you’re trying to go.

Remember, this doesn’t mean you can only do one task a day, it means do one task at a time.

Block off hours for a task, set a goal and only move on to the next task after you have achieved that goal.

SCHEDULE: Take things that take you out of your flow state and schedule them into your day as if they were tasks or projects. The most common offenders are emails and social media.

MUTE: Turn off any social media notifications or emails during your task times so you are not tempted to ‘look quickly’. 'Offtime' is an app that allows you to block access to certain apps on your phone during designated hours. Personally, I just put my phone on airplane mode and schedule in Social Media work time.

Theme Your Days: There are a lot of activities to do when running a business, in order to eliminate some of the decisions for you during the week, it is an option to create theme days. 

For example, Marketing Mondays: the only tasks you do on Monday are Marketing activities. You know that if anything comes up during the week regarding marketing that you will schedule it for Monday or whatever other themed days you decide on. 

Let me know if you have noticed the impact of context switching and how you are planning your days to avoid it.