Single Tasking – The New Way to Get things Done?

Like many, most mornings I sit and write out a to do list of things that I “have” to accomplish today. Like most women, the list is an ambitious one.Yet, at the end of the day, over half of the list remains and feelings of failure set in.

This morning, as I looked at what remained undone from a series of lists, contemplating what else needed to be finished right now, I came to a realization. Multi-tasking doesn’t work. Yes, this flies in the face of many time management gurus. But it really is true.

With 300+ pages to read for school, a house that needs picked up, valentines day gifts to be finished, and about 100+ other things on the list, you would think that the only way to get it all accomplished would be to multitask. You would think wrong. 

If you run a search on the phrase “Multi-Tasking doesn’t work” you will find over 7,000,000 (million, people) entries. The first page alone shows some highly credible resources.  See, it turns out the human brain was not designed to multi-task, but to focus on the task at hand. Well, that is unless one of the tasks you are performing is an “autopilot” task.  (Such as listening to the radio while knitting or something).

As a result of the intensive studying I have done on multi-tasking versus single-tasking (okay, so the study was task-list avoidance rather than true study), I am rethinking my task-list as well as how I perform it.  From paring the list down each day to things that I can truly get accomplished, to focusing on exactly what needs to be done as I do it – living in the moment or task so to speak- I want to determine if single-tasking is more effective for me. Yes, in effect, I am clearing out the ADD of task list performance.  I will keep you posted on how that goes.

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