Do Not Multitask
In the world we live now, there’s a massive tendency for people to multitask stuff for a lot of reasons form time management to even the fact that they are bored of something and want to spice it up a little bit with something else more fun, but it is not a good practice.
We’re all multitasking either if we like it or not but this is not such a healthy habit since the human brain cannot entirely focus on two actions at the same time thus the attention is going to be spread on both. The problem with multitasking is that because you can’t focus on more than one thing at the same time the quality of your work will not be so excellent.
When you’re doing something important, your primary goal should be to focus one hundred percent on that thing and ignore everything that’s going on around you because then your work would be of higher quality.
For me, as an example, I cannot concentrate on writing and listen or talk to someone at the same time. I used to watch a lot of online workshops back in the day, and every time I wanted to take a note I had to pause the clip. If I wouldn’t stop it, I always had to go back and rewatch that part since I missed everything.
Take every task one at a time and give it your full attention, this is not an easy thing to do, when I started practicing this it took me a lot of conscious effort but it got more comfortable with time.
One thing that made a huge difference for me was killing the time thieves, this is a term stolen from my mentor, and it means that you have to "kill" anything that may distract your attention. If you’re writing, close all of your social media tabs and throw your phone off the window to make sure no one interrupts you. If they can find you, they will interrupt you so make sure to hide from them as good as you can.
If you don’t want to get lost in your tasks feel free to make a schedule for yourself, it doesn’t have to be a rigid one. What I find works best for me is getting one where I have to make a particular activity for a specific time, but I don’t have to make it always at that time. I can choose when I want to make that thing, but it has to do it every day.
If you value quality, multitasking is not good for you, and you should avoid it. After all this time it’s still hard even for me to avoid it sometimes since it’s just impossible to hide away from all the distractions, but I try to focus on only one thing as often as I can.
Every time you find yourself doing something else instead of the task you have on your plate, take a conscious decision to get back to it.
If you’re applying this advice your productivity will go through the roof; this is how about five hours is enough time for me to create one post for my blog and prepare the @OCD compilation in the same day.
The pictures are from pixabay: 1, 2, 3, 4.
I really want to work on this.
It's so damn hard, because we've been trained to believe we should be doing multiple things at once, and that we're unproductive if we do only one thing for a single hour (gasp!).
The Lincoln/Douglas debates were nearly 8 hours sometimes! People had immense attention spans back then, and their ability to communicate complex ideas was greatly enhanced as a result.
Neil Postman in his book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" argues that the most coherent time in American history was the 19th century, as the primary medium was the written and spoken word.
I think we still have the capacity to focus but maybe the thing that was different then was that there was so much less information available to focus on.
Let me explain- in the past you had to go find a book, one book, and it was at a library - it was a special book and it had to stay there - people then had to be really good at absorbing the whole thing because it wasnt always with them
But now, there is so much new information every day and it is accessible right from our phones - we need to be good at knowing what to pay attention to and what to skip - and we tend to skip more than we focus. 🤷🏽♂️
I must say, that sometimes it might be more productive, if you don't care about what you're doing and the quality of your work but for the most part it is not such a great strategy.
I bet that the 19th century USA was an exciting time and place to be alive but not as good as it is to be alive now. :D
Hi - this is some seriously excellent advice - I've been thinking about this a lot recently...
Your point about disconnecting from social media for periods is, I think, crucial for creativity. In order to refine something a calm mind is essential.
Also I think the best blog posts must be written mostly in periods of disconnection - as this allows you to style them up and even develop a series of posts and think about how they should thread together.
I think this sort of "proactive" writing/ creating is best done off line, but there's still a role for spending a few hours a day 'in the SflowM ".
Thank you. When I write I try to disconnect myself as much as I can because I hate so much when someone interrupts me in the middle of an idea. It's so frustrating, especially if that idea slips away.
I'm usually staying online since I'm listening to music while writing but I close or mute my social media tabs. :D
I agree... it's good to disconnect from 'all this' when yr in the zone... and having a bit of music streaming is a bit different to to a 'Steemit-gmail-bittrex-kraken-blokfolio-twitter-guardian-dtube-cryptokittie-imeanicouldgoon-cycle.
I don't know if you like Marx or not, but I think his economic and philosophical manuscripts (early writings - 1840s) are a great example of the kind of 'deep thinking' that I just don't think anyone could write if they're constantly distracted'. Same with someone like Nietzsche, or Richard Sennet today.... or Zygmunt Bauman, you can just sort of tell... a bit of isolation is inspiration for the intellect!
Haha, I see that crypto kitties are hot nowadays. :))
I haven't read Marx yet, I've heard he has some interesting point of views, Che Guevara loved his work. For the last couple of months, I focused my reading more on Osho since I find his writings as being outstanding. I will check those authors out in the future.
I had a bit of contact with Nietzsche but not an in-depth reading of his work.
There is a danger of spreading yourself too thin - better to read in-depth rather than too broadly I think.
I have read females are able to multitask better than males but I am not sure if that’s true or just a myth.
In my case I do tend to get distracted when doing homework or finishing some work and this makes me lose some time. I need to get better on this aspect!
Another thing that happens to me is daydreaming haha, sometimes I start to think about something important to me and when I realize in have spent like 5 minutes doing nothing when I should be working.
I'm not sure, to be honest, it may be just a myth.
It's like a muscle, the more you train it, the better it gets. Daydreaming often happens to me too and if I'm not doing anything significant I usually just go with the flow, but if it's important, I try to stay focused. It's not always easy but it worth it. :)
I think it also depends on the person as to what is distracting or not. I find it EXTREMELY difficult to focus if there is noise ...any noise. I cannot have a conversation while the radio is on. I will go silent because my brain is short circuiting. I have been asked if I am on the spectrum because of it (I have no idea, maybe). I certainly can't write with noise on. I know some people love their "background noise," but it really pains me.
On the flipside, I can take notes really well, and it helps me retain stuff whilst listening to a lecture (there are studies that handwriting notes helps; typing them does not, probably because you have to shorthand-for-your-memory if writing by hand but have a tendency to just type exactly what they say without rewording it).
On the other hand, I cannot read aloud and have any foggy idea what just came out of my mouth. I have to read it silently for it to register.
But, I can do a mindless task like walking or doing the dishes and listen to an audiobook and I enjoy that very much.
I'm sure everyone has their own list of yes/no distractions, so it really depends, I think!
I often listen to music or some background noise while writing or reading since if I hear people talking around me, I cannot concentrate and get distracted very easily. Also, I know people that can read in any environment without getting distracted by people talking, for me, that is very hard to do.
Feel that, to understand something while reading I have to do it in my mind too, that's the only way.
Ive recently gotten very good at being able to read and focus surrounded by noise and talking - the key?
To be around more people and talk with more people more often. I think isolation makes us worse at focus
Hmm, that's an interesting approach. I have an active social life most of the time, but I can't always focus on reading if people are talking near me without background noise.
Only women are able to do several things at the same time.
My wife does not succeed, when I ask her to sit still and keep quiet ...
Haha, dude, this is funny :)))
You really have a wife?
Obviously :)
Introducing Myself
Sweet, that's a great introduction post. As a matter of fact, after six months on Steem, I'm going to introduce myself tomorrow ;)
Excellent, waiting for your post, I follow
I love the idea that I could possibly be good at multi tasking, but, yeah, not true. It is definitely not possible like the article says.
And belive me because I try.
You cant cook a dinner and eat it at the same time. It happens one after the other.
Most things I try to do arent like cooking a dinner they arent time sensitive in the short term, and maybe thats why I think its okay to get distracted.
I need to work on focusing in the long term and not getting distracted in the short term.
What is the best advice for focusing in on one thing for just 45 minutes at a time???
You will hardly be able to focus on something without getting distracted for 45 minutes. It's not such a big problem that you get distracted, realize when that happens and go back to your work. But, if you're taking it one thing at a time it should be a lot easier. ;)
Great explanation, years back I became a multi-slaker. I put off doing many things at one time.
Completely agree with this. Multitasking is for half @$$ing it... :)
Haha, well said ;)