Don't Overestimate Your Multi-tasking Capabilities

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Given the COVID-19 situation, many of us find ourselves juggling a variety of unexpected tasks and obligations.   For many parents, working from home has become the norm.  In addition, parents have been asked to home school their children in conjunction with various online learning being faciliated by their children's teachers.  In our home, my spouse and I are both teaching online.  My oldest daughter is home from college taking classes online, and my other two children are engaging in online learning at the high school and middle school level.  The house is busy, and the schedule is complex.   

The natural tendency in these cases is to find ourselves multi-tasking often.  However, we have to be careful about overestimating our multi-tasking capabilities.  Research clearly shows that human beings struggle with trying to work on multiple streams of work simultaneously, yet we are overconfident in our abilities to juggle in this fashion.  Here's an excerpt from an article Kendra Cherry on the topic:

Take a moment and think about all of the things you are doing right now. Obviously, you are reading this article, but chances are good that you are also doing several things at once. Perhaps you're also listening to music, texting a friend, checking your email in another browser tab, or playing a computer game.

If you are doing several different things at once, then you may be what researchers refer to as a "heavy multitasker." And you probably think that you are fairly good at this balancing act. According to a number of different studies, however, you are probably not as effective at multitasking as you think you are.

In the past, many people believed that multitasking was a good way to increase productivity. After all, if you're working on several different tasks at once, you're bound to accomplish more, right?

Recent research, however, has demonstrated that that switching from one task to the next takes a serious toll on productivity. Multitaskers have more trouble tuning out distractions than people who focus on one task at a time. Also, doing so many different things at once can actually impair cognitive ability.

Ok, so how do we handle the current dynamic situation given these research findings?  Building a schedule is a start, as is dedicating particular spaces as quiet areas where people cannot enter and interrupt others.   Building in breaks is essential, so that you can step away and clear your head.   Research shows that "unfocusing" in this way can stimulate creativity and enhance productivity.   For us, we've started a family workout challenge.   That has been a nice diversion, and it addresses the issue of breaks and unfocus time.   Next, you need to find some time to step away from being connected so that you can get some of your work done without interruption by email, text, and the like.   Be sure to let others know when you are going to be focused on a task and not able to respond to messages.  Finally, you have to spend some time each day prioritizing tasks, so that you are focusing your efforts on the most essential duties.   Getting three things done very well is always better than doing a mediocre job at ten things.