Multi Tasking is Hard

I’ve been busy as, like truly busy for the last couple of months

Part of that is because I’ve got too many things on the go, work is brain draining but in a good way and I’m just getting older so don’t have the energy I used to.

Lately I’ve been thinking about multi tasking and what that means to me.

A cluttered desk with a laptop, colorful sticky notes, and a notebook for planning.

Multi Tasking

I think it is fair to say that most people need to multi task in their lives. Things crop up when you are doing one thing, and you need to either juggle both of them, or work out which one is more important to be focusing on.

This happens a lot with day to day things in life and work. It happens all the time if you like it or not.

People have different levels of skills when it comes to doing this. For some it is natural, for others it can be a struggle and they need to work out how to manage when things like this crop up.

Multi Tasking on Projects or Hobbies

This is what I’ve been thinking about recently. Especially after doing my yearly review and realising that I didn’t move the needle as much as I would have liked with the different areas I focus my time on when I am not at work,

I thought that it would be helpful to jump between projects knowing what needed to be done with each one.

It would help with getting bored with one task, while slowly moving all of the things I needed to be doing in the right direction. In reality I’m not sure it worked as well as it did in my head.

Multi Tasking is Problematic

For me it comes down to it feels like you are super busy. In reality you aren’t. All these small things aren’t adding up to much.

Yes I do think you can have multiple projects or hobbies. Some may be similar, others may be completely different. Some will require a lot of hands on word, others may only need an update.

But focused work on the important stuff will be better than multi tasking. Well that’s how I am thinking about it all now.

A creatively arranged set of broken and whole yellow pencils on a white background, emphasizing selective focus.

Time Blocking and Focused Work

Blocking out sets of time to work on one thing in the most focused way possible is how I’m approaching things this year.

For me it looks like this:

Knowing exactly what I want to achieve in the block of time I have allocated
Turning my phone’s do not disturb on
Using Brain.FM to help me stay focused

That’s the one and only thing that’s really worked for me.

Forget the apps, or anything else, this is the one thing you need to lock in before anything else.

Finding out that headphones help, with basic background music it triggers my brain into knowing that it is time to work. Without it, it’s a real struggle.

I just need to remember to do block out the time for focused work.

What works for you?