Are You Multi-tasking Too Much?

Have you ever felt exhausted at the end of a day but also felt that you haven't accomplished a thing? Do you spend much of your day reading emails? I want to dispel a big myth: Multi-tasking is NOT the best way accomplish and complete your tasks. Oh but wait, we've worked so hard at multi-tasking. Women excel at multi-tasking. I love to feel extremely busy; it makes me look good in front of my boss.

Are you interested in working more efficiently?

1. Multi-tasking leads to mistakes and miscommunication. Wile talking on the phone, do you find yourself reading emails? Do you really think you retained both forms of communication? Did you catch all the details? I'm sure you didn't. While on the phone, pay attention to the other person on the line. That sounds like common sense and politeness, but I know too many of us are not doing this on a regular basis.

2. Use your calendar to block out your day in small bits or larger chunks of time. Don't just make a to-do list, but schedule time to do each thing on it. Julie Morgenstern in her book "Time Management from the Inside Out", states the bottom line: "A to-do not connected to a when rarely gets done." Be truthful with yourself on how long you'll need to complete a project and give it that full time. If it's a big project, then break it up into multiple segments throughout the day or week. If you find your attention wondering then work in smaller bits of time. Creative projects need longer portions of your day. And if you have the type of job where you must answer the phone as soon as it rings, then you will need to block out your time with bigger gaps, because you will take longer to complete tasks.

3. Use the morning or your most energetic time to get the most important things done. Big projects, writing, creative projects, anything that needs your undivided attention do first thing. Because if you are pre-occupied with a major project and worrying over it, you can't really focus on anything else.

4. Now for the really big challenge: Don't read your emails throughout the day as they pop into your inbox! Emails have become junk food or even heroin to many of us. They are addicting and make us feel super busy and important. But I really want to strongly suggest that you schedule specific times to read your emails maybe every other hour, and especially not while you are working on something else. For example, while I've been writing this article, I have received 5 emails, but I have not clicked onto my inbox. Not even just to see who they are from.  I know that if I go to my mailbox it will take longer to regain my focus and get back in the blogging zone. By scheduling time to focus on emails I'll  have enough time to read, respond or mark for follow up, and delete or file. I think this is where many of you get in trouble with emails: You read the email in a hurry and leave it in their inbox to deal with later. But then fifty or a hundred more emails come on top of that one and all is forgotten. Maybe you'll remember something about it but think it's been taken care of. Scheduling sufficient time and focusing solely on one task at at time while minimizing interruptions is essential to working efficiently and getting your to-do list DONE!!

5. So this brings me to my biggest suggestion FOCUS! Focus on one thing at a time. Do it. Complete it. Wrap it up and put it away. File the paper work. And check it off your list. Don't move on to the next thing until you have completely finished the one you are working on. This is how so many of you have piles of paperwork on your desk. You didn't really finish the one thing before moving onto another.

So start by making a list of tasks and projects. Guestimate the time it will take you to complete. Break large projects into smaller bite-size projects. Now block out time throughout your day for each task. Be sure to schedule time for phone calls and emails. The more things you schedule - the more you will get DONE!!

Don't forget another appointment

We all have a lot of things to do. Work meetings, projects deadlines, appointments, social events, errands and various tasks. Keeping your schedule under control will help you stay on time and get things done. Here's how:

1. Have one calendar, and only one calendar for everyone you are responsible. You can't meet that client if your child has a dentist appointment at the same time and you have the 2 events on different calendars
2. Digital vs. paper?
Digital is Great: compact & light weight, easy to make changes, easy to set recurring events with just a couple of clicks, you can set your devise to notify you within hours or minutes of any appointment
Paper calendar: you already know how to use it, serves as a paper record of everything you did in one year
3. At the beginning of the year, add every appointment you know and especially every recurring appointment. Even if it's something you do once a week and you've been doing it for 5 years, put it in your calendar. This will assure you of not mistakenly double booking your time.
4. If you have children, at the beginning of the school year, put every event, holiday, vacation, short days, teacher meetings in the calendar.
5. Use your calendar to PLAN. This is essential to being efficient. Put everything on the calendar, including all tasks and projects, such as writing for your book or blog, calls to make, answering emails, filing, organizing, networking appointments, lunch and coffee dates, facebook time, everything!
6. Schedule time to work on projects, such as I do for writing this blog. Don't just put the deadline on your calendar, (and this next point is the key to time management) but put the time necessary to complete the task before the deadline.
7. If you were unable to complete a task, move it to another time or day. Don't leave anything that needs to get done up to your memory or when you have free time.
6. Keep focused on today, but always keep an eye out for what's coming soon. I suggest you keep your calendar on your desktop or with you when you are out of your office. Refer to it throughout the day to stay on schedule and remind you of appointments.