Is Multitasking Holding You Back?

Resources and links mentioned:

Ultimate Time Management for Assistants

Assistants Who Self-Care Facebook Community

Check out the video transcript:

Do you ever try to increase your productivity by multitasking? Well, stay tuned. I'm about to share with you how multitasking decreases productivity and increases mental fatigue.

Assistants, if you would like more transformational strategies geared towards you, please subscribe to my channel and hit the bell to be notified when my weekly videos go live.

I'm Annie Croner of WholeAssistant.com, and on this season of The Whole Assistant Show, I am breaking down myths that are holding us back as assistants from living our best lives and having the best career possible.

On today's show, I'm breaking down the number one myth that most assistants buy into, the myth of multitasking. Now, this is a tricky one for us because this is a part of our identity. I don't know about you guys, but I have touted my mad multitasking skills several times before I realized that in order to truly up level, I would need to focus on one thing at a time. And there are just so many detrimental effects of multitasking and switching back and forth between tasks. So I encourage you to stick with me here for a bit. I'm going to break some things down for you. You may have some thoughts that come up that are going to be counter to this, but I just want to encourage you to stick with me.

Our brains are not designed to do two things at once. Now, of course, I'm not talking about walking and chewing gum, two mindless tasks that we've done so many times and are more subconscious than they are conscious. What I am talking about are those conscious tasks that require our focus and attention.

What multitasking really means is that we are switching back and forth between tasks, and up to 40% of our productive time can be spent switching back and forth between tasks. You guys, that is a lot of time. That's nearly half of our productive time being spent switching back and forth between tasks. It takes our brain time to switch; and then also if we are focusing on multiple things at once or we're trying to juggle multiple things at once, it can decrease the quality of our work and lead to an increase in mistakes.

It also leads to mental fatigue. Have you ever experienced one of these multitasking side-effects? Perhaps you let something fall through the cracks or perhaps you made a mistake that you otherwise wouldn't have made had you not been switching back and forth. Or perhaps you've experienced brain fatigue. I want to hear about it. Please leave a comment below.

The question then becomes, what do I do instead? I've got all these things to manage. How do I manage them all? Well, first we need to write it all out and prioritize it. Then once that's done, we give ourselves the gift of focus. Allow yourself 25 to 45 minutes, maybe even an hour if you're in the flow, of focus time to get those tasks done in the order that are most important. So get your high priority tasks done first, and then move down the list. That is the only way that we can create high-quality work and that we can actually increase or double our productivity.

I've been studying productivity for quite a while now, and I've noticed that as I implemented more focus into my daily life and into my daily routine, the quality of my work has skyrocketed. Guys, I've doubled or even tripled my productivity.

Now, I also would suggest that we batch similar tasks together to make that switch between tasks a lot easier on our brain. So group them together in ways that make sense for your brain, and it'll make the switching between tasks a lot easier. You still want to focus, you don't want to multitask, but this is a way that we can actually fix the switch to make it easier on our brain.

Then last but not least, the doors for UTMA, or Ultimate Time Management for Assistants, are open. This is my time management system that I've created a course out of. I got to tell you, guys, it's transformational. It is geared towards assistants, for the workload that we have as assistants, and for the priorities of working off of someone else's priority list. All of that is taken into account in Ultimate Time Management for Assistants. So please be sure to check that out. The link is below this video.

I hope this video has given you some good food for thought. Do you think you'll move away from multitasking? Please leave a comment below sharing why or why not.

As I mentioned a moment ago, doors are now open for Ultimate Time Management for Assistants, or UTMA. UTMA is the only time management system created for assistants by an assistant that addresses the unique time management challenges we face every day. Please check out the link below for more information. To continue the discussion and receive support from your fellow assistants, head on over to facebook.com/groups/WholeAssistant to join our assistants-only community.

If you like this video, please let me know by hitting the like button below. Also, be sure to subscribe and share this video with your fellow assistants and administrative professionals. Last but not least, if you found this video helpful, I want to know about it, so please leave a comment below sharing how.

Get instant access to my free mini-masterclass, 3 Steps to Beautifully Banish Burnout.