It’s a new week once again, friends – are you ready?

As you know, I start each week with some positive words of wisdom, and this week’s are:

Last week, I promised to help you rid your life of some of the distractions that keep you away from being productive. Your smartphone, your inbox and the open tabs on your computer are all open invitations for distraction. You’ll give yourself extra time each day to focus when you silence your notifications, close your inbox and remove unnecessary tabs from your desktop.

If you want to focus, you can’t welcome unnecessary opportunities to intrude on your mental space.

Emails can be particularly intrusive because they often have an unnecessary sense of urgency. There are businesses and organizations that stress the importance of prompt responses to emails, but we can’t treat every situation like an emergency.

Many times, we blame electronics for distracting us from our work, but sometimes our physical body forces us into a state of serial-tasking. For example, if you’re hungry while trying to work, your attention will flip between your hunger and your work until you take care of your physical needs.

In addition, you’ll also want to be sure you’re attending to your health in a broader sense. Getting enough exercise, practicing mindfulness and incorporating regular breaks into your day will keep you from being tempted by distractions.

What works for me is looking at exercise as the gift to myself for doing my work. When 1PM comes around, an alarm sounds on my devices that it’s “me” time. I’ll then get out of the office and go to the gym or for a long walk outside.

People are more likely to login to YouTube or check social media when they need a break. Instead of trying to work and watch a mindless video at the same time, dedicate time for yourself to enjoy this distracting activity. Limit how much time you’ll spend on this break so that your guilt-free distraction time doesn’t turn into hours of wasted time.

Make technology your ally. Apps like Forest help to turn staying focused into a game. Extensions like RescueTime help to track your online habits so that you can be more aware of how you spend your time. One of my favorite browser plugins “The Great Suspender” suspends all of those open windows on your internet browser.

Multitasking is not the key to productivity. The key to productivity is focus. It’s far better to schedule time to focus on each task than it is to try to do everything at once.

Make use of the methods outlined above and prepare to be more effective and less exhausted in the process.

Carlos

You know that I start each week with some positive words of wisdom! This week’s positive wise words are:

Last week, I wrote about how humans are incapable of truly multi-tasking, engaging instead in serial switching.

It’s true that you are capable of absorbing information with your eyes while doing other things efficiently. Scientifically speaking, making use of your vision is the only thing you can truly do while doing something else. Think of walking to the street corner, looking at the traffic light while you are walking.

For everything else, you’re serial-tasking. Constant refocusing like this can be exhausting. Worse still, it prevents us from giving our work the deep attention it deserves.

Think about how much longer it takes to do something when you have to keep reminding yourself to focus. That’s one element of why multi-tasking does more harm than good for your productivity.

This element is one of four reasons to stop all these multiple-task-shenanigans: Multi-tasking wastes your time.

Yes, you’re literally losing time with all your self-imposed interruptions! People lose an average of 2.1 hours per day getting themselves back on track when switching between tasks.

You’re decreasing your productivity by as much as 40% with all your many and varied simultaneous tasking activities according to some studies. That’s a significant loss in efficiency. Would you be happy if your surgeon operated with 40% less accuracy and attention while you’re “under the knife?”

I have three other great reasons why you should stop multi-tasking. Next week I will share them with you! Stay tuned!

Carlos

Happy Monday once again, friends!

Have you been looking forward to my positive words of wisdom for the week?

As I mentioned last week, the term “multitasking” was originally used to describe how microprocessors in computers work. Machines multitask, but people cannot.

Many people believe they are excellent multi-taskers, despite the challenges of performing two tasks at once. Think of the many times when you do several things at once, like talking on the phone while cooking. Did you ever burn the soup? Or maybe the soup is fine, but the person on the other end of the phone conversation says, “Hey! Are you listening to me?”

Consider the amount of attention that each of these simple tasks requires. One, or both, may be simple enough to be carried out on autopilot. Or, not.

While we may be okay performing simple tasks simultaneously, what about more complex tasks? Can you give full attention to your PowerPoint presentation while watching your favorite movie? Watching it while you work is fun, but maybe you’re making your work more difficult and time-consuming. How many times did you revise that PowerPoint slide while giggling at a favorite line in your favorite movie? I’ll bet it happens often.

Your brain was designed to focus on one thing at a time, not many things.

Your brain compensates when you ask it to latch onto multiple targets, switching back and forth, back and forth. You focus on the more urgent task; the other task slides into the background. Your brain realizes you’ve been neglecting that task, and, switches again. And again.

When you’re bouncing back and forth like this, an area of the brain known as Brodmann’s Area 10 activates. Located in your frontopolar prefrontal cortex at the very front of the brain, Brodmann’s Area 10 controls your ability to shift focus from one task to another. People who think they are excellent multi-taskers are really just putting their Brodmann’s Area 10 to work.

I know you’re reading my message, thinking, “But I can juggle multiple tasks!” Tune in for my next message to see why that may not be true.

Carlos