It’s time to quit the multi-tasking bullshit and get high on single tasking instead.
In a recent workshop I facilitated I found myself saying: death to multi-tasking! Stop pretending you’re doing it. Stop touting it as a strength (it’s not). Stop managing your days like a grasshopper with ADHD.
Here’s the thing.
Multi-tasking is a detriment to productivity. It makes you less effective due to poor focus, and when all is said and done, tasks actually take longer to do than if you did them one at a time.
Sure, there are times when multi-tasking is totally doable: when your brain is using different cognitive resources to perform each task (like reading a book and listening to classical music). But the majority of the time, most of us are actually task-switching when we claim to be multi-tasking.
Task-switching is the grasshopper with ADHD in action — bouncing between one incomplete task and another. High energy. Distracted. Limited progress made.
Task switching increases stress, frustration, mental effort, feeling of time pressure, and mental workload. Outcomes that are all in direct opposition to your productivity goals.
It’s time to honor what truly benefits your productivity — and that’s single-tasking.
One task at a time.
Full engagement.
Zero interruptions.
No distractions.
Just conscious, focused attention on the task at hand until it’s done.
So I dare you. Go on and kick multi-tasking to the curb. Single-tasking is about to rock your world.