Hi,
It's Robin.
I wanted to touch base with you on something that really gets in our way sometimes,
Even though it's something that we think is very helpful to us.
It's actually something that pulls us away from being focused and really truly task-oriented,
And it is the concept of multitasking.
Now there are two different schools of thoughts when it comes to multitasking.
One is,
Multitasking helps me be productive.
Multitasking is what helps me accomplish several things that I need to do.
When I look at my to-do list for the day,
I might have ten things.
I don't know if I have time to do all ten things today,
But if I can bunch a couple of things together and do these two things kind of at the same time,
Or if I can do this,
But this call comes in,
I can stop and take this,
And then I can get back to this.
And that thinking,
We've thought for a long time,
Has helped us because we can kind of batch things,
We can quickly move from one thing to another,
But here's the reality.
What we pretty much know now is,
The human brain really can't do more than one thing at one time.
It's kind of like if you think about it as a computer.
If you're on your computer and you're on your web browser,
Let's say,
You might have several tabs open across the top of the screen,
But in reality,
You can only have one open that you're looking at at a time.
Even if you have two things open on the screen,
Your eyes and your brain can literally only look at one thing.
If it needs to look at the other thing,
It has to leave one and go to that one.
So instead of multitasking,
Which really doesn't work,
Because we think we're feeling like we're getting a lot done,
But research and study after study have shown us now it's not the case.
It actually can make us much less productive because not only are we bouncing back and forth and back and forth and back and forth between things,
But every time we stop doing one thing to refocus on something else,
When we leave that thing and come back to what we were just doing,
We've actually now need to take more time to get back into where was I?
All right,
Let me get back into this mindset.
Let me turn this brain back on because I pulled out of there and went to this brain for a moment.
So moving back and forth actually takes time to get back into what we were doing and refocusing.
So again,
Research shows us multitasking isn't terribly effective.
If you've got several things you want to get done,
The most effective and efficient way to get those things done is to simply focus,
Get something done,
Focus,
Get the next thing done,
Focus,
And get the next thing done.
Focus is the key here.
Where is your mental attention?
Wherever it is you're focusing,
That is what you're going to get accomplished.
If you're bouncing around,
You're not going to get anything done.
And you may have experienced this.
Those days where you feel like you haven't stopped,
Like you're running and bouncing from thing to thing and you think you kind of covered bases,
But by the end of the day you realize,
I didn't really check anything off my to-do list.
Most of my to-do list items are still there because I got into them,
But I never really completed them.
I was not able to finish them.
So the key is focus.
Choose one thing and do it.
Finish it.
You will be amazed how when you're trying to multitask,
Something might take you an hour to complete.
If you simply focused on it to begin with and stopped going to all those other distractions,
It would have taken you 15 minutes.
So we're all looking for time.
We're looking for more time to get back,
Right?
There's not enough time in the day.
There's plenty of time in the day.
The most successful people in the world have 24 hours today.
And the least successful,
Biggest bums,
Laziest people in the world have 24 hours today.
There's plenty of time to do anything and everything you want to do.
The key is,
Are you choosing to use your time wisely by focusing on the right things and pushing the other things to the side?
