The Art of Unlearning Multitasking

It came to me one day; maybe I am doing too much all at once and maybe not all of it, very well. We are inundated with articles on how to multitask, why we need to multitask and of course, why women are better at it than men and how the millennial generation have never even heard of multitasking. Wait, maybe the men and millennials have something here.  

Typically I have between four to seven windows open on my laptop and I have a dual monitor system. I am a machine at switching screens and flipping around between projects, email and apps but is it really necessary to be a workplace Ninja? I recently, two years ago, started to adopt this new solo task principal in my daily life and then realized how much of an impact it could have if I applied this school of thought to my work life. Easier said than done. I committed to this new way of focusing, working and delivering excellence but then something happened; I had to unlearn 33 years of multitasking at work.

Like many of you, I began working early in life, 15 years old. I had a part time job at a medical uniform shop after school and I was determined to be the best at everything I did so that meant I had to learn to multitask. In school you learn to focus on one thing and complete it then move on. In life we are expected to do multiple things well, and move on to more multiple things. Now learning to multitask was much easier than I thought. My brain is wired for organization so it was easy for me to have several things on the go like serving two or three customers, counting stock and getting the nightly paperwork done, all at once. I knew how to break down the tasks in my mind, into bite sized tasks I could blend with other tasks, doing a little of each at a time, until I was done everything. I was competent at what I was doing and I always finished my tasks by the end of my shift. Looking back, did I do ALL of it well? Did I complete it to a level of excellence that I can be proud of? Maybe not all of my tasks were done with excellence. I certainly applied more interest and attention to the tasks I liked rather than the ones I didn’t or didn’t feel were important.

Fast forward 31 years, two years ago. I am still multitasking like a 15-year-old work Ninja but at a whole new level. I’ve managed to learn to multitask LIFE. Yes, I can email someone during a walking meeting with someone else while filling in a few details on a slide presentation while texting my husband about dinner Facebooking a friend about shopping liking some photos on Instagram accepting invites on LinkedIN all while buying a coffee. I left out all punctuation in that sentence for a reason.  I did all of that at the same time, no time for punctuation, no time for breath between tasks. I felt really tired and at some point, I also realized I wasn’t happy with quality. The quality of what I was doing and the quality with life are what bothered me. At no point did anyone object to all of this multitasking or being multitasked and no one saw what I was producing as less than high quality. It was I; I saw it and it bothered me. It was small errors or little things forgotten. It was the birthday card I forgot to buy or better yet, the one I bought but misplaced just to realize I had not misplaced it but I had mailed it too early! I decided that was it, I am going to focus on everything I am doing, being in that moment completely. If I need to divert my attention, then my focus changes and goes toward the new direction, fully, completely. This was monumental a task and something I struggle with two years later.

How do you unlearn something that everyone values so much and has even become a credential or staple on our CV’s? You don't. You catch yourself everyday, you drop back into the habit without even knowing. However, you can become aware and make changes. You can become your own police force, watching for that work Ninja to pop out. I am an avid list maker and I’ve found that keeps me focused. I’ve also gone “low tech”. I turned notifications off on all my “PING PONG” devices such as my laptop, computer, tablet, phone and watch. I use technology to work for me and not me working for it. I program in reminders to get up and walk away from my desk (and drink water). I schedule time to check my email and social media so I am not immediately checking it with every message that comes in. Most importantly, I make time to breath. This sounds so strange but in our tech filled lives of multi-chaos (aka multitasking), taking time to just close your eyes and breath gives us the chance to slow down and re-evaluate the day. I made a practice of having a yoga mat in my office just for that, my five minutes of “ah” midday. I also have made a habit of treating the phone as a secondary intrusion. When I am with someone they deserve my undivided attention and unless I am waiting for an urgent call I must look out for, I keep my phone tucked away or off.  I want everyone to feel the importance of being the solo attention of another human being, even if it is for just a few minutes in a meeting. The connection you make with that person is much stronger and you understand everything more clearly when you devote the time to focus on that time you have together.

The next time you look around at the hurricane of activity circling and think you need to handle it all right now, all at once, consider this; maybe the men and the millennials have a secret to success, maybe the most important thing is not getting it all done but rather, getting it all done well, one task at a time.