I read an article a few days back, somewhere in between buying lunch and yet another model, about how multi tasking is over rated. It is funny how it reasonated with me, even though I am a born mult tasker.
I do loads of things, And i can deliver on different projects, deadlines, topics and managing different people. Really well. But I do them one at a time, even though they look at the same time. When I am working on something i compartamentalize. If it is something higly absorbing, I go through meal times or loo breaks without note, realizing at 4 pm the deli is close or ran out of bread. I keep an eye out for the corner of my screen and have usually very defined what will allow me to interrupt - such as an email from my boss or an answer on a question on what I am working on. If less interesting I mqy introduce a greater level of procrastination. Even on email ai try to be focused. If i am cleaning emails, i will do it till the end, to really have the clearest picture of what is out there.
So yes, I am a multi tasker in life and in the office, but I am a focused multi tasker, if that definition exists at all. This article I read from HBR had all sorts of tips, and I was happy to be doing things right. The last 20 days, I have taken non multi tasking to a whole new level. I devoted myself to a single project and a single deliverable. When the project started I followed my usual self - a few hours on this, and then on with my day job. Whether was the nature of the project or the quality of my multi tasking, I made limited and slow progress. As I was dealing with massive data sets across products and regions, doing it in blocks of hours did not allow me to always have the full picture. Now, I am too engraned in the detail, but I am so systematically. When I go to sleep, I can actually see the models and think ahead of my next steps, organizing as I go along. This was new to me, but I thought ironinc that it happened in parallel with the 'dont multi task' article!
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