Remember while in school, you might “tune out” occasionally in class while the teacher droned on about matters that you felt had no significance in your life (EVER)?
Your mind would wander off to wonderful places, but your body was imprisoned in that class room til the bell rang.
And then . . . WHAM!
Out of the bliss of your mental escape come the question directed at you: “BARRY OWEN! Considering all that I just explained why IS x equal to 7?
AAACK!
That feeble attempt at multi-tasking implodes and panic sets in as you dig in to the recesses of your mind trying to conjure up even a few of the words spoken in the past 10 minutes. No dice! . . . the teacher waits until she is certain the point is made and lets you off the hook by giving the answer and reminding you to pay attention in class . . . or else . . . !
Many folks brag about their ability to multitask even though it has been proven over and over and over again that multitasking is FAR LESS EFFICIENT than single tasking . . . or “sequential action”
Most of the folks who claim fame to super-human multitasking abilities are really not much more than very fast singletaskers (Even computers handle one task at a time very quickly) . . . or they are simply delusional . . . showing a lot of motion but not doing much of anything completely or well.
I’m as ADD as anyone . . . that’s an affliction I have grown up with and still hear stories from my early school days of teachers sitting me next to their desk so they could “control” me and keep me on task. It wasn’t until I entered the working world that I began to see and understand the inefficiencies of multitasking . . . that flying by the seat of my pants in all things was not moving me forward very quickly.
and so, i decided to fix myself as much as possible such that I could actually FOCUS and get something accomplished before moving on to the next thing.
The only trick that I’ve ever learned that works EVERY time is the question: “What’s Next?”
this doesn’t always work because my innate tendencies are to let my mind wander about in etherland . . . but at the point at which I realize that I’ve strayed off course and started down some obscure bunny trail, I simply ask myself “WHAT’S NEXT?”
That sole, simple question nearly always brings me back on task (SINGLE TASK) as I remind myself that I must finish THIS task before moving on to what’s next.
This ain’t rocket science, but it sure feels good when I hear someone say: WOW! How did you get ALL of that DONE today?
I just “What’s next?” my way along sequentially til it was all done 🙂
I’m just sayin’
Best,
b
PS – Pareto Realty begins our educational training calendar next week. We are offering vendor presentations on Wednesdays (Gavin Gossett with Peoples Home Equity on 10/6), I’ll be doing a session on “time Blocking” and getting the most out of every day on Thursday . . . and Masterminds on Friday. Every session starts at noon, and ANYONE is welcome.