I used to take pride on the fact that I can multitask 'till one day Chris and I were working on almost the same amount of tasks { I already forgot what they were} and he works on each task one by one while I do all of them together simultaneously. By the time he's done I'm only half way there.
An article by Peter Bregman in the Harvard Business Review confirmed that multitasking decreases productivity and drains creativity. He wrote: "Doing several things at once is a trick we play on ourselves, thinking we're getting more done. In reality, our productivity goes down by as much as 40%. We don't actually multitask. We switch-task, rapidly shifting from one thing to another, interrupting ourselves unproductively, and losing time in the process."
However, I learned from the book The Other 8 Hours* that there is one type of multitasking that works well that is when we do head and body activities.
For instance:
a. Listen to podcast or TED talk while folding laundry/ cooking/ sewing
b. Write this list while watching the kids play out door
c. Chris like to listen to book on kindle while commuting to and from the office
e. Do dishes or some clean up while talking on the phone.
f. Pray while hanging the laundry
g. Read book in the bath room {even Max is doing this} or when I was nursing my baby
h. Watch Shark Tank and Master Chef on YouTube while choosing pics to upload in Picasa
The key is to notice when we are doing either body or head activity then look if we can combined it with another head or body task to do at same time.
*The link in this post is my referral link
