How to be more productive!

athenajade (52)in #psychology • 7 years ago

I’m the type of person that always tries to do things as efficiently as possible, so this means that until recently, I’d be a master in multitasking….

At least I thought so….

Little did I know it actually doesn’t work at all, and even has a negative impact on our lives! So I decided to do some more research around it and prevent others like me of making the same mistake I did….

With everything evolving so fast and the increasing amount of expectations and obligations that go hand in hand with this, doing just one thing at a time always seemed a waste to me. Why do one thing if you can combine and do many at the same time, and be done sooner, right?!

There's a lot of things that state the contrary, and here are the ones that made me put my master multitasker crown down, and convinced me to focus on one thing at a time.

As long as it doesn’t require a lot of of mental resources we are fine, but the moment both activities do require focus, at least one (or even both) activities will be affected.

Research not only shows that it isn’t as efficient as we like to believe, it can actually be harmful for your health!

When it comes to attention and productivity, our brains have a finite amount, so when we are multitasking we mostly switch between tasks, unless it’s automatic behaviors like walking. Those seem to be more easy to combine.

Moving back and forth between multiple tasks actually wastes productivity, since you lose focus in the process of switching between tasks and you can never fully get “in the zone” for either of the activities.

And if you think you are actually saving time by multitasking things, you are wrong as well! In most cases it’ll actually take you longer to finish several projects, while jumping back and forth between them.

What appears to work best is to do similar tasks in batches, as each task requires a specific mindset, and once you get in flow you should keep it going until you can finish a specified part of the whole task.

Switching between tasks can cause a 40% loss in productivity and might lead to a lot more errors in your work. You’ll end up missing important details of one or both tasks and you might disrupt your short term memory by switching between them.

Multitasking also leads to “inattentional blindness”, meaning you are missing out on a lot of things happening around you. Like f.e. when you’re walking outside while talking on your phone, you might be looking at your surroundings, but the beautiful trees etc. will not actually be registered in your brain. Quite the shame, wouldn't you say?!

And for those who are on a diet…. Stop multitasking while eating, as it can prevent your brain from fully processing what you’ve eaten and you’ll end up not feeling as full and eat more than you normally would. So turn off that screen or tv while eating and focus fully on your food!

It also dampens your creativity as it requires a lot of your “working memory” (temporary brain storage), and when it’s all used up it can take away your ability to think creatively.

Something that worked well for me is using a time tracker or the pomodoro technique to fully focus on a task for a certain amount of time.

Cheers and have a nice day still! <3

Here are some other posts you might like!

1)How to stop taking things personally: https://steemit.com/psychology/@athenajade/stop-taking-things-personally
2)On asking favors: https://steemit.com/steemit/@athenajade/let-s-spread-that-steemit-love
3)How I got off my couch and started to run: https://steemit.com/health/@athenajade/couch-to-5k
4)On how language influences us: https://steemit.com/psychology/@athenajade/do-we-speak-the-same-language
5)On absolute truths: https://steemit.com/psychology/@athenajade/debate-1-is-there-such-a-thing-as-an-absolute-universal-truth
6)On the limitations our conditioning puts upon us: https://steemit.com/life/@athenajade/this-inner-cage-called-conditioning
7)On growing our own potential: https://steemit.com/life/@athenajade/whatever-you-are-doing-you-are-getting-better-at-it
8)Relax! https://steemit.com/psychology/@athenajade/don-t-forget-to-relax-my-dear-steemians