Multitasking in life, singletasking in business

Is multitasking really for everyone? Pros and cons of many tasks when it comes to the business.

What can we understand by the word “multitasking” and what is the purpose of being able to do a lot of tasks at the same time? Is it necessary for your job or business to know how effectively switch between human abilities?

A lot of Tasks

A human brain is definitely capable of doing many different things at the same time. Definitely the biggest disadvantage of trying to be more „robot-like“ is when it comes to the reduction of attention span caused by changes in your brain while processing many things at the same time. It can slow down your brain processes in general. Because your brain is plastic, being constantly multitasking can cause changes in your brain structures. “Simultaneously using mobile phones, laptops, and other media devices could be changing the structure of our brains,” said Kep Kee Loh and Ryota Kanai, researchers at the University of Sussex in England. In addition, doing various things at the same time also slows down your ability to regain its focus.

A multitasking person may seem efficient but is it really so productive? It may actually take more time in the end and involve more errors when you try to focus on many tasks simultaneously. According to the multiple studies multitasking—is a myth. Often, when you are trying to perform better applying too many different abilities simultaneously,  in the end, you aren’t able to achieve your desired result because of lack of focus. But you may think you are the epitome of productivity and efficiency, getting so much done all at once. True is, that there is no such thing as multitasking, in the way you are thinking of it. “As most people understand it, it is a myth that has been promulgated by the “technological-industrial complex” to make overly scheduled and stressed-out people feel productive and efficient.” Ford Saeks – Superpower: How to Think, Act, and Perform with Less Effort and Better Results

Really we did not mean to ruin your self-esteem, standards and stereotypical ways of looking at your work morale. We shall dive much deeper into the issue of multiple tasks, work ethic, and gender questions.

Men vs. Women

There is a common stereotype, that women are better at multitasking than men.  The standard clichè is that women are much more efficient comparing to the opposite sex especially when it comes to family activities: dropping kids to school, planning free-time activities, managing housework and many more. But some studies found no sex differences while others reported either a male or female advantage. However, we cannot rule out the possibility that there are no sex differences in serial multitasking abilities.

What is serial multitasking?

Professor Paul Burgess  from University College London completed the study where he defines two types of multitasking — concurrent multitasking (to do two or more activities at once e.g. to exercise and simultaneosly to talking on a phone) and serial multitasking. Mayor difference between the two of them is that the second one we all do very often. Serial multitasking is about rapidly switching between tasks e.g. writing an email and answering the phone meanwhile checking the wheather forcast for the upcoming day or week.

Multitasking in business or how to help entrepreneurs 

Important is not to try to do too much at once, but if you wish opposite as Iris Apfel said „More is more and less is a bore“. Each one of you can choose what tipe of business to undertake and what kind of entrepreneur to become. You may not agree but it is a matter of choice if you transform yourself in a  busy, stressed and highly demanding person with very little time or in an easygoing, calm, and well-balanced one. At least, you should try to take the control of your time each day. Time is the money as we all know.

“Today’s entrepreneurs need multiple skills to succeed in business. Multitasking comes naturally to the present generation entrepreneurs as they are taught multitasking abilities in the journey in this fast-changing tech-savvy world. Your inability to manage yourself in any one area of business be it marketing, finance, technology, innovation or managing resources can be equally damaging,” says Akram Hoque, Founder and Editor of the Policy Times. To run a successful business you should learn how to delegate tasks.

Single-tasking might be good for your you and your business

You should also realize that multitasking is not everything when it comes to your business. Essential is to know how to work with oneself.          Single-tasking means less stress. When you waste too much energy trying to multitask, you may finish exhausted and behind on work. On a contrary when you focus on one thing at a time you’re more likely to get into a state of „flow“. You might finish what you wanted to and even turn lower your work stress levels. You can easily manage your day routinne by starting to do schedules of your daily duties, then you can continue by differentiate significant emails or messages, by avoiding distractive websites and other work enviroment and optimizing your focus on a task totally.

Everything needs a conclusion

One quotte for inspiration: “When you’re getting ready to juggle multiple businesses, you should be sure that you have enough hands to catch every ball.”by Richard Branson. All in all, you can find various articles on the web dealing with human multitasking and mono-tasking abilities but it is only up to you to decide which one is going to simplify your life.