Multi-tasking

Are you a successful multi-tasker? More than likely the response is yes. Because in today’s world the perception is that you have to be, it seems that if you’re not good at multi-tasking then you’re not eligible for hire. Would it surprise you that my response to you if you answered yes to my first question would be—then you’re not good at managing your time?

As a leader you wear many hats, have lots of responsibility, and are pulled in many directions. That can be said for just about anyone in the work place so this applies to everyone. So since we operate in an environment that demands so much of us, we have to be very focused on managing our time wisely. The first step to being successful at managing your time is to stop multi-tasking!!

The diagram below highlights how multi-tasking eats up your time and in many cases adds 100% to the actual time it would take to complete a task. Moving away from multi-tasking does not mean you stop wearing many hats, reduce your responsibility, or stop responding to requests. But what it does mean is that when you organize your time to match your capacity with your demand for completing tasks, you do so with the understanding that you need to complete one task before you move onto the next one. Notice how the time adds up in the following diagram.

What this diagram is showing is how quickly time adds up when you “multi-task.” In the top section of the diagram titled Multi-tasking you will note that the individual started on task 1 which takes 10 minutes to complete. However, half way through he started working on task 2, and half way through that task he started on task 3. And after working on task 3 for half the time, the individual returned to task 1 and 5 minutes later completed the task. The time spent working on task 1 only took 10 minutes since that’s what the time it required. However, task 1 sat idle while working on task 2 and task 3 for 5 minutes each totaling 10 minutes of work on a task outside of task 1. Then if we add the 10 actual minutes to complete task 1 it totals 20 minutes. This is 100% increase over the actual time required to complete task 1. And as you can see, this is carried over to all additional tasks that we multi-task on. In the example above we worked on 3 tasks and it totaled 60 minutes to complete.

Under the focused-tasking section if we simply complete each task before moving on to the next one, we can complete each task in the actual time required—10 minutes or 30 minutes for all three. I understand this is a very simplistic example, but you can’t argue with the logic. In the real world you would have to add the time it takes for you to find the previous task you were working on. It would require time for you to re-focus on that particular task by having to re-read or think through where you left off. Any time you stop focusing on a subject and have to refocus you use valuable time—in addition to the time lost not working on the task.

For those that are thinking well you don’t know my environment, it’s not that simple, etc. etc. I do understand your environment and I’m not claiming that you have to follow this 100% of the time. Let’s face it, if your boss walks in and has an urgent need for you and you respond “no can do…I’m focused-tasking,” you just may not have any tasks to worry about. What I am saying is that in the course of the day where you have the privilege of determining what you will be working on and when…focus on one task at a time. You will become considerably more efficient and even more importantly—effective! And who doesn’t want to be an effective leader?

If you're interested in learning more about this topic, project and time management, I suggest you read any book by Eliyahu Goldratt, a pioneer in this area. However, I first learned of this concept in Dr. Goldratt's book titled Critical Chain.