Focus on less to gain more

How do we stop the relentless deluge of things to juggle …?

When we're feeling stressed and overwhelmed by the relentless deluge of things to juggle, the last thing we would think, would be to do less. The reality is -  just like keeping our homes organised, rather than chaotic - overloading our schedules doesn't make us more productive. It makes us less effective

A great insight here is that it is not just our time that is limited each day, it is our energy too. So this is where the famous Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto's theory steps in, which is commonly known now as the 80/20 rule. The principle is simple: identify the 20% of tasks which generate the most value in our life, and then we invest our energy primarily into them

So the less we do, with greater focus, the more impactful, accomplished, and fulfilled we will be

Many people view multitasking as a necessity in the face of all the demands they juggle, yet in reality multitasking undermines productivity as focus is diminished and dissipated. We are distracted from one task as we move to another and it’s imperative that we realise that distractions are costly. A temporary shift in attention from one task to another – stopping to respond to an email, DM, or taking a call – increases the amount of time necessary to finish the primary task by as much as 25% – yes you read it correctly 25%!

This is a phenomenon known as ‘switching time’

No wonder we feel like we are running to keep still, spinning all of these plates. The more we pack in, the more we speed up, the more time it actually takes! At least now, we know multitasking does not help us!

What’s more, we may think that due to the gift of today’s technology – especially what we are now able to do through our phones, we are able to multitask even better – not realising that the very act of responding intermittently, is actually one of the biggest ways we are adding to our own to do lists – each time we respond – it is another task, another fragment of our time. As we are working on one thing, we hear the siren ping of a new email or social media notification and we proudly ‘respond’ – confident in our demonstration of how ‘on it’ we are

And even though this feels good superficially, we feel like we have ‘done something’ by answering the email or viewing the post – there are two big downsides that far outweigh the temporary benefits of this so-called multitasking

In the immediate term, as mentioned above – it fragments our work. What should take us an hour to finish if we worked straight through, ends up taking two because we get distracted by the 'relief' of checking our phones

Hang on a minute, what do we mean ‘relief’ of checking our phones?

Here’s the thing. In the longer term, there is an even bigger problem, in truth, whilst we may believe that multi-tasking speeds us up, in reality it reduces our capacity to tolerate the toughness of hard work

By toughness of hard work we mean the fears of our work not being good enough, the frustrations of things taking longer than we thought, the normal doubts and insecurities, boredom, lethargy and fidgeting which we all experience during our working day. Having the ability to keep going through this discomfort is mental strength – we need to build our mental muscles by not ‘multi-tasking’. Constantly responding to the quick relief of checking our phones, putting the laundry on, introducing other easier topics into a tricky meeting we are in, weakens our mental muscles, our mental muscles which we need to power us through so despite the tough bits of our work, we keep working anyway

When we keep working anyway - despite the tough bits of our work – we get the real gain, the gain of a job well done, a task completed …

and then...

A well deserved, guilt free, celebratory break!

OK, so now what about focus? A wandering mind is the domain of neuronal circuitry known as the default mode network. It is associated with planning, pondering and daydreaming. But it falls short in focusing on the here and now, which can be a bit of a problem if we’re supposed to be paying attention. Two things can help us keep our mind from straying: happiness and cognitive control. In a study by Harvard University psychologists, subjects were found to be happier when they focused on what they were doing instead of on extraneous thoughts. Actually, whether or not their minds wandered was a greater predictor of overall happiness than the activity itself. When we’re happy, our brains release a number of neurochemicals, including dopamine, which greatly increase our ability to learn and remember. What’s more, the mind ceases to wander, we tend to feel better because we’re no longer on high alert for the next potential threat – the next distraction in our multitasking repertoire

There it is - stop multitasking and start to focus

When we focus on what we are doing instead of on extraneous thoughts and distractions we become happier – our mind works for us rather than against us. Remember to work with your mind and build mental strength  - stop multitasking and start to focus

Our Mental muscles Upskill teaches you about this and much more

Our Upskill - Mental muscles - focusses on mental strength and balance - building your ability to learn on the fly, master ambiguity, bouncing back from adversity, reinvigorating, rebalancing and reinventing!

Mental muscles gives you the practical tools and insights to build your mental strength so you can gain more by focussing on less

You can explore the Mental muscles Upskill HERE