Multitasking is inefficient

I always said boys are terrible multi-taskers, as if this was a criticism   And admittedly most of the men I know are not good at doing more than two things at once.  As far as I can tell, they can barely have a conversation while drinking a cup of coffee some times.   They also seem more relaxed about things overall, and these are high powered men, than their female counterparts. In 2005 Dr. Wilson did a multi-tasking study and found that your IQ drops 10 points while multitasking.   And I have to think there us some wisdom here.

Let me be not the first to say this but certainly one to repeat it that multitasking is an inefficient way to use your time. 

Do this little exercise:

Set the timer for 15 minutes
Open your email and favorite blog or social media outlet
Now set a task to do
Work on the task, but be sure to check your email and social media, too

Cone back here when the timer rings

How'd it go?  Did you finish your task? How much time do you think you spent on "other" things?  We are all busy and multitasking reigns supreme. Up to a year ago I was the self proclaimed queen of multitasking.   I answered email while at the playground, tweeted in meetings, and worked on three projects simultaneously (aren't windows and tabs on the computer wonderful things?) 

But I was tired and stressed and slower at completing tasks (refer back to Dr. Wislon's findings.)  And I came to the conclusion that the constant shift of focus not only made it slow to check off tasks but also impossible to ever feel like I got a break.  The only time I wasn't multitasking was while running or reading my book at night - I could never figure out how to read and do something else, thankfully.

And when I stopped checking my email every five minutes or working on multiple projects, I found nor only could I finish simple things like a blog post more quickly but also I felt much more relaxed.  Now even though my to do list continues to grow, everything is given concentrated time.  Whether it's a half hour to blog or ten minutes to check email u font do either while doing something else.