The Multitasking Myth

“Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.” – Gary W. Keller

At sometime we all get into a situation where we’re trying to juggle many things at one time, resorting to multitasking to get more done.  But our brains cannot multitask, what we are doing is task switching.  And with every task switch there is a price to pay.  Rebooting on one task takes time and effort and if we try to shortcut that we increase the risk of mistakes and reduce our efficiency with the task.

There are times when we need to focus intensely – aka deep work– and times when we can do lots of small tasks – todo lists etc.  But in both situations we are generally best doing ONE task at a time.  In deep work the task is focused concentrated work.  In the task list, it’s moving each task towards a completion – or pause point – ONE task at a time.

One technique that can help is the pomodoro technique.  For instance, if you have some deep work to undertake, using the 25min/5min, cadence of the pomodoro technique can help avoid concentration burnout with large chunks of deep work.

Another related technique is timeboxing.  This is allocating a block of time (a time box) to the task in hand and focusing on that task during the allocated block of time, or to completion – or pause point, whichever happens first.  The time boxes can be any length and aren’t necessarily followed by the rest time that a pomodoro focus time is.

With either the pomodoro or timeboxing technique there will be times when we cannot bring a task to completion.  The mind is not comfortable with incomplete tasks and your mind can keep ticking away, dwelling on the task, and this can bleed into future tasks and time.  Also sleepless worried nights can be a result of incomplete tasks playing on the mind.

One way to deal with this is by wrapping it up as cleanly as possible, AND document the potential next steps as a NEW task to be scheduled.  The mind is then fooled into thinking that you have completed the task and the next steps are ANOTHER task.

So if you find yourself trying to juggle lots of things at same time, remember that even when juggling the juggler is only doing one thing at a time – throwing or catching.