By Joeann Fossland  

You know the feeling: you’re busy in your business, you’re a spouse, parent, a caregiver to your parent, and/or a volunteer in your community. The only way to get it all done seems to be to sort mail while talking on the phone, send e-mail on your mobile while sitting in a meeting, help with homework while designing your next marketing piece. “Multitasking “seems the only way to keep juggling and to get it all done. Sound familiar?  

Did you know that multi-tasking is a myth? The reason is that the reticular activating system in your brain can only attend to one event at a time. This means that rather than multitasking, what you are actually doing is rapidly shifting back and forth between tasks. According to Michael Harris, 

When we think we're multitasking we're actually multi-switching. That is what the brain is very good at doing - quickly diverting its attention from one place to the next. We think we're being productive. We are, indeed, being busy. But in reality we're simply giving ourselves extra work. 

Ryder Carroll in the book, The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future observes that:  

Inevitably we find ourselves tackling too many things at the same time, spreading our focus so thin that nothing gets the attention it deserves. This is commonly referred to as "being busy." Being busy, however, is not the same thing as being productive.  

Research has shown that the human brain performs very poorly while attempting to multitask. A study cited in the Harvard Business Review, (3 Norwegian researchers featured in the Harvard Business Review) found that both sexes performed equally badly when they attempted to multitask. For both men and women, multi-tasking resulted in dramatically reduced accuracy and slower mental processing speed. In fact, claims that multitasking can be used by some people as a means to increase productivity have been completely debunked.  

The Dangers of Consistent Multitasking

In his book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport declares that the habits of modern professionals such as checking email at all hours, rushing from meeting to meeting, and valuing multitasking above all else, only stand in the way of truly valuable work. H warns,  

Spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work.  

Adam Grant, Wharton management professor and the author of Give and Take and Originals, goes on to say,  

There are so many people trying to figure out how to do not just more work but better work, because we live in a world dominated by distraction. One of the things we know from nearly a century of research is that people are not good at parallel processing. They are good at serial processing. And where people never really fully engage, it’s hard to get a lot of work done. Newport has done a terrific job of highlighting how intense focus gets better results both in terms of quality and quantity.  

The growing body of scientific studies suggests multitasking is inefficient and will, in the end, take more of your time and will impact the quality your results as well as your physical wellbeing. Doing several things at once robs your brain of the opportunity to do one thing well before moving to the next. 

Attempting to do more than one activity at a time diminishes your focus. To illustrate this point, in a study by Carnegie Mellon University, subjects were asked to listen to sentences while comparing two rotating objects.  

The study found the resources available for the brain to pay attention visually dropped 29 percent and the listening portion of the brain’s activation centers dropped by 53 percent. So, sorting your junk mail while talking with a client may result in throwing something away you should have kept or missing a clue to something amiss with the client! 

The Solution? Set Up “Deep Work” Practices
Newport suggests that to keep your focus high and to achieve maximum productivity set up “deep work practices” that include setting boundaries that minimize interruptions and maximize focus. Steps to take include:

• Turn off your phone and notifications.
• Do your deep work at a time when others won’t interrupt you.
• Close your office door or go somewhere like Starbucks where you can work without being interrupted by others. 

Reduce Your Stress 
Another reason to rethink your multitasking relates to the stress it creates internally. Stress has health repercussions and continued stress can lead to serious illness. You can consciously reduce your multi-tasking by noticing it and then taking any of these steps. 

• Meditation quiets the external chatter and allows you to increase your focus.
• Engage in mindfulness. Instead of rushing through your daily activities, practice mindfulness by experiencing each moment as fully as possible. The result is increased satisfaction and awareness.
• Be truly present and listen in a deeper way to each person you come in contact. This improves communication and strengthens
• To accomplish more, avoid Close the door to your office, turn off your social media notifications, and let your phone go to voicemail if you want to be more effective. The result is you will actually take less time to accomplish your tasks.  

If you want to be more successful in 2020, take a look at where this affects the way you work. Then, the next time you get the urge to multi-task, start to create a new habit: challenge yourself to stop and give each task your full attention. Remember, focus on achieving only one thing at a time to achieve most efficient and effective results!