We all want to be super-woman but most times multitasking is NOT a good thing. I learned long ago that trying to learn multitasking skills is more of an art than a science. I also came to realize that it breaks your focus tremendously. We tend to be more focused when we concentrate on one thing. Learn a few tips on why you need to avoid this ‘productivity’ habit.
Although applied to a work environment, the productivity issue was labeled as a paradox some 30 years ago by Harvard Business School Professor Wickham Skinner, who noted that the harder one works directly at improving productivity through additional exertion, the more difficult it seems to improve productivity. Applying this to modern times means throwing more technology at a problem does not necessarily make you more productive. In fact, it can multiply ineffectiveness and inefficiency.
Avoid Multitasking
From Visually.
As mothers and women in general we like to pride ourselves on our ability to multitask. They are standards that social media loves to flaunt in our face often. Those curated images of the perfect baby happy as can be, with the clean house and the buff husband passing you a refreshing beverage. Not a care in the world for this modern-day woman!
Of course, I can do the laundry, start dinner in the instantpot and balance my grocery bill on the new app that I just installed on my phone. Let me check, have I gotten all my steps in today? Consumed by 8 glasses of water and helped Willow with her math homework? NO PROBLEM.
We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE compare ourselves to our friends like we are something special and a superwoman. You can picture that mom on the playground, watching her kids while breastfeeding the baby and making lists on her phone plus uploading a really cute picture on her Instagram. Yes, THAT mom.
I’m tired just thinking about all the things that I don’t get done because I am too busy taking care of the little details that get in the way.
The thing is multi-tasking is an inherently bad idea.
You should not drive and talk on the phone or eat or try to read a map.
You should not check your email, scroll through TikTok, lurk on Facebook, read a blog, pin to Pinterest and comment on a YouTube video when you are supposed to be writing a blog post.
You should not neglect your kids when you are at the park because you need to send out just one more text or share a funny meme with your husband.
In an age of rampant distraction, seeking mindfulness and staying in the moment is a gift for you and your family. Stay in the moment. Every professional organizer will tell you that there are many organizing myths and multitasking a big one that takes away your focus. Why? because if you are working on two different things, you are dividing your mental capacity to process the information in half. If you are trying to do four things, well, you are only using 25% of your brain to complete the task.
What does that mean? To keep it simple, it will take you twice or four times the allotted time to accomplish your task. So you think that you are being more efficient but in fact, you are being less efficient. There is a cost to multitasking and it could mean that if you are ‘heavy multitasking’ you could temporarily be lowering your IQ by 15 points… Yes, 15 points. You know sometimes as a parent you have enough trouble maintaining the IQ you currently have without taking away from it, am I right?
by kikikarpus.
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Margarita Ibbott is a travel and lifestyle blogger. She blogs about travel in Canada, the United States and Europe giving practical advice through restaurant, hotel and attraction reviews. She writes for DownshiftingPRO.com and other online media outlets.