Before doing anything else, write down a list of all your ‘to dos’ for the day. Include on this list even small items such as checking voice mail, reading email, etc.

2) Review that list and rank all your tasks from the highest priority to lowest priority.

3) If all other things are equal and you have two items on your list that have an equal priority, put the one you dislike first and the more enjoyable activity after it.

4) Start your most important task. Once you begin, do not stop work

“To do two things at once is to do neither.” - Publilius Syrus

Productivity Myth: Multitasking is effective.

Although the folk-wisdom for many years has been that doing many things at the same time is good way to tackle a number of tasks, it turns out that this is not true. Let’s look at the problem from both a philosophical (logic) and a scientific (psychology) viewpoint.

Logically, each time you switch between tasks, such as suddenly checking voice mail while in the middle of composing a short email, you lose a few seconds to a full minute, depending what is needed to get the materials together for the next activity. The obvious conclusion is that there is a time-cost every time you switch!! After an eight hour day of ‘multitasking’ this adds up to wasted time. Imagine the time deficit after a whole year or the span of an entire career!

The human brain is an amazing marvel and it can do many things in parallel. Yet, psychologists at The Brain, Cognition, and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan (1) have discovered that the higher functioning part of the brain that is involved in cognition, acting like a choreographer for thinking, perceiving, and acting, can only focus on one item at a time. Multitasking is not really the act of doing 5 things simultaneously as it is often advertised. Instead, it just means that someone is togging between a number of tasks in succession before completing the prior task.

Serial Tasking Challenge

Instead of Multitasking, I’d like to propose your try a better method: Serial Tasking. This is a great way to insure you focus on important, high-level tasks. I dare you to take the Serial Tasking Challenge! Stop being the King or Queen of Multitasking as busyness is not the best solution for business. Serial Tasking will allow you to accomplish more by focusing on the truly important tasks first. If you try these rules for 30 days, I am certain you will become a believer.

The Serial Tasking Rules

1) Before doing anything else, write down a list of all your ‘to dos’ for the day. Include on this list even small items such as checking voice mail, reading email, etc.

2) Review that list and rank all your tasks from the highest priority to lowest priority.

3) If all other things are equal and you have two items on your list that have an equal priority, put the one you dislike first and the more enjoyable activity after it.

4) Start your most important task. Once you begin, do not stop worki

e of composing a short email, you lose a few seconds to a full minute, depending what is needed to get the materials together for the next activity. The obvious conclusion is that there is a time-cost every time you switch!! After an eight hour day of ‘multitasking’ this adds up to wasted time. Imagine the time deficit after a whole year or the span of an entire career!

The human brain is an amazing marvel and it can do many things in parallel. Yet, psychologists at The Brain, Cognition, and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan (1) have discovered that the higher functioning part of the brain that is involved in cognition, acting like a choreographer for thinking, perceiving, and acting, can only focus on one item at a time. Multitasking is not really the act of doing 5 things simultaneously as it is often advertised. Instead, it just means that someone is togging between a number of tasks in succession before completing the prior task.

Serial Tasking Challenge

Instead of Multitasking, I’d like to propose your try a better method: Serial Tasking. This is a great way to insure you focus on important, high-level tasks. I dare you to take the Serial Tasking Challenge! Stop being the King or Queen of Multitasking as busyness is not the best solution for business. Serial Tasking will allow you to accomplish more by focusing on the truly important tasks first. If you try these rules for 30 days, I am certain you will become a believer.

The Serial Tasking Rules

1) Before doing anything else, write down a list of all your ‘to dos’ for the day. Include on this list even small items such as checking voice mail, reading email, etc.

2) Review that list and rank all your tasks from the highest priority to lowest priority.

3) If all other things are equal and you have two items on your list that have an equal priority, put the one you dislike first and the more enjoyable activity after it.

4) Start your most important task. Once you begin, do not stop work

oratory at the University of Michigan (1) have discovered that the higher functioning part of the brain that is involved in cognition, acting like a choreographer for thinking, perceiving, and acting, can only focus on one item at a time. Multitasking is not really the act of doing 5 things simultaneously as it is often advertised. Instead, it just means that someone is togging between a number of tasks in succession before completing the prior task.

Serial Tasking Challenge

Instead of Multitasking, I’d like to propose your try a better method: Serial Tasking. This is a great way to insure you focus on important, high-level tasks. I dare you to take the Serial Tasking Challenge! Stop being the King or Queen of Multitasking as busyness is not the best solution for business. Serial Tasking will allow you to accomplish more by focusing on the truly important tasks first. If you try these rules for 30 days, I am certain you will become a believer.

The Serial Tasking Rules

1) Before doing anything else, write down a list of all your ‘to dos’ for the day. Include on this list even small items such as checking voice mail, reading email, etc.

2) Review that list and rank all your tasks from the highest priority to lowest priority.

3) If all other things are equal and you have two items on your list that have an equal priority, put the one you dislike first and the more enjoyable activity after it.

4) Start your most important task. Once you begin, do not stop work

ltitasking, I’d like to propose your try a better method: Serial Tasking. This is a great way to insure you focus on important, high-level tasks. I dare you to take the Serial Tasking Challenge! Stop being the King or Queen of Multitasking as busyness is not the best solution for business. Serial Tasking will allow you to accomplish more by focusing on the truly important tasks first. If you try these rules for 30 days, I am certain you will become a believer.

The Serial Tasking Rules

1) Before doing anything else, write down a list of all your ‘to dos’ for the day. Include on this list even small items such as checking voice mail, reading email, etc.

2) Review that list and rank all your tasks from the highest priority to lowest priority.

3) If all other things are equal and you have two items on your list that have an equal priority, put the one you dislike first and the more enjoyable activity after it.

4) Start your most important task. Once you begin, do not stop work

Before doing anything else, write down a list of all your ‘to dos’ for the day. Include on this list even small items such as checking voice mail, reading email, etc.

2) Review that list and rank all your tasks from the highest priority to lowest priority.

3) If all other things are equal and you have two items on your list that have an equal priority, put the one you dislike first and the more enjoyable activity after it.

4) Start your most important task. Once you begin, do not stop working on it, especially for minor interruptions like coffee breaks, phone calls, or social visits. The key is to focus only on that one task. If it is possible to do so, complete it before starting anything else on the list. If there is a constraint, focus on this task until you have taken it as far as humanly possible before moving to the next task.

5) Repeat Rule 4 with the very next important task.

Focused Procrastination

The flip side of this approach is focused procrastination. Together they make up different parts of the same strategy.

As a sentient being, it is important to realize the following about your actions:

• All activities are choices. You decide who to see, where to go, what to do, and how to do it.

• All activities contain an opportunity costs. When you choose to pursue Task A, you sacrifice the ability to work on Task B at that moment (and occasionally, forever).

Focused procrastination occurs when you purposely delay taking action on low value tasks (e.g. watching TV) in order to work on higher level ones (e.g. spending time talking with your family). Items that are targets for focused procrastination should always be placed at the very bottom of a ranked to-do list. Some of these tasks do need to be done, eventually, by yourself or someone else, and will get completed when the time is right. Others never require any action whatsoever and will quietly disappear.

Bottom Line

Together, Serial Tasking and Focused Procrastination will increase the available time you have for powerful action and decrease the amount of guilt or stress in your life that is due to reflecting on low quality tasks as ‘time wasting’ mistakes. These two methods produce high-quality results for anyone who chooses to make them part of their daily habits.

Reference:

(1) Rubinstein, J. S., Meyer, D. E., & Evans, J. E. (2001). Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Per