How to Stop Multitasking and Narrow Your Focus Instead

Multitasking does not work. However, that may not stop you from trying it. You may argue that you can eat potato chips while reading a book or listen to music while surfing the internet. However, as Dave Crenshaw notes in The Myth of Multitasking, you can’t type out an email with someone while having a conversation with someone else. You can’t talk to your son or daughter while studying. While you may think you are multitasking, what you are actually doing is cheating something or someone. You are either not listening to your children, or if listening to your children, not giving due diligence to studying.

So then why do we attempt to multitask? One reason is because it makes us feel good; it makes us feel we are being productive. Hence, it is easy to get caught up in doing lots of things because it makes us feel like we are making significant progress. There is a problem with that thinking. We aren’t making progress; we are just switching back and forth between activities or tasks. Moreover, when we are switching between projects, we are losing up to forty percent of productivity. Things that could have been accomplished quicker take longer. Things that could have been achieved easier are harder.

Stop Multitasking and Narrow Your Focus

Gary Keller, in The ONE Thing, states, “Extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.” And the most dangerous word regarding your focus is yes. Leadership guru and best-selling author Peter Drucker said, “Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.” Nothing is a bigger destroyer of focus than always saying yes.

Try this. Stop multitasking. Give yourself fully to whatever the task is at hand. Share on X

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “A no uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a yes merely uttered to please.”

Develop the determination that says, “I cannot do everything and accomplish anything of importance.”

Saying no is an essential element in achieving goals. You can’t say yes to everything (or many things) and excel at something special.

Try this. Stop multitasking. Give yourself fully to whatever the task is at hand. Develop the determination that says, “I cannot do everything and accomplish anything of importance.” Decide what your highest priorities are and say no to other things. Align yourself with your purpose. As Stephen Covey said, “And the way you do that is by having a bigger ‘yes’ burning inside.”

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Eugene Wilson – A trusted Apostolic voice with the latest strategies for effective leadership