Want To Be More Efficient? Stop Multi-Tasking

You know the old adage – if you want something done, give it to a busy person. So, so true. But just make sure that the busy person (aka ‘You’) focuses on each new job at hand or you are likely to be producing far from your best results.

If you pride yourself on being amazing at multi-tasking, it’s time for a rethink. While multi-tasking will certainly make you feel busy and that you are achieving more in your day, research proves the opposite is the case. Multi tasking actually reduces your overall productivity by a whopping 40%!

Not only that, but multi-tasking has been found to reduce your IQ and (the news keeps getting worse), the more you take on the harder it is for your poor brain to filter irrelevant information which reduces the overall quality of your work.

Don’t fret!

You can be a very effective and efficient time manager without resorting to multi-tasking.

When it comes to smart time management it is key to get a handle on what you are spending your time on each day. You can do this by ‘mapping’ your time across a few typical days so you can track where your time goes.

Once you have that information you can implement 4 very effective strategies:

1. Keep the 80/20 rule in mind – only 20% of what you do each day produces 80% of your results. So with your mapped time identify what you are best at and what produces the results for your business. These tasks are your MUSTs which you should focus your time on.

2. Identify what those you work with are best at and DELEGATE these tasks to them. The reason you delegate is to free up your time for your MUSTs.

3. Identify the time wasters – the tasks you don’t need to do and which are not contributing to getting your results and start REJECTING these from your day.

4. With the time you gain back, make time for your WANTs – as little as 15 minutes ‘Me Time’ a day can improve your performance by 23%.

What do you think of multi-tasking?