Justin G. Bautista
Writer
February 16, 2012
Single-Tasking Demanded
Seemingly, multi-tasking is an excellent skill.
Posted on by

Why won’t you do two or three tasks at the same time and save our dear time? A lot of people do it anyway – talking on the phone while listening to Rihanna, uploading photos in Facebook and cooking spaghetti at the same time. Employers seek workers who can multi-task so they’ll need less people and keep the money. People are rewarded to multitask.

 

Multi-tasking is the norm of society now, and the advent of smartphones surely helped. Eating dinner while checking your email is prevalent, yet an irritating and displeasing habit.

 

Time is too valued nowadays which led to everybody’s multi-tasking. But I defy multi-tasking. Doing a lot of things at the same time is confusing; and contrary to the popular belief, I find it less productive than single-tasking. Here’s why.

 

Distraction Avoided

 

Multi-tasking simultaneously means multi-distractions. You won’t focus on one activity, so each activity is a distraction to one another. My mom trained me to watch TV while folding clothes. The thing is, I don’t enjoy the TV show since I’m preoccupied at folding. And the clothes looked ugly. Leisure time is watching TV and productivity time is folding clothes; and I’ve been more satisfied and more productive separating them.

 

Attention and Self-control Prolonged

 

Think of doing one task at a time and you’ll be able to focus more on it. It will take less time to finish one task and the quality of you doing that task is plenary. Divided attention was turned into full attention, which means less mistakes and better performance. Besides, it takes self-control to do this, which implies maturity of a person.

 

Pleasure more Pleasurable

 

Everybody needs time for themselves. And it’s more pleasurable to just enjoy your “me time” without slicing in some tasks, regardless if that’s just simple or minor task. Just take it slow when reading your book. Don’t fast read because you need to save time, but read at a comfortable pace. Or just take a shower without thinking about your job. Better yet, sing your favorite tune and loosen yourself.

 

Complexity leads to Stress

 

When one task is complex enough, why add another one? Another great reason why single tasking is the better choice is because it is less stressful than multi-tasking. And we all know stress ruins our mood, apart from the damaging but avertible health consequences.

 

Perseverance Promoted

 

Single tasking exercises one’s perseverance. And perseverance shortens the path to your goal. As McCarty (2012) puts it, concentration is an art; “if we practice concentrating, we can be busy, focused, and efficient. Best of all, we can breathe and relax”.

 

For me, this is living better. I hope you do too, with whatever works for you.

 

Which activities do you single-task?

 

  • The World is my Curtlefish

    Love the phone stack idea. I find that multi-tasking eg ironing work shirts while watching tv, means I get tasks done. The other day I made a phone call while walking the dog. It was a great use of time as well as a novelty for me. However, I think that choosing which tasks to combine is essential to avoid loss of concentration and efficiency.

    • Justin G. Bautista

      Thanks for pointing out the decisive idea of “choosing which tasks to combine is essential to avoid loss of concentration and efficiency”. It also depends on the person which tasks are easy enough to combine so you don’t compromise.

  • http://peacefulcontroversy.wordpress.com Peaceful Controversy

    I am a woman so multitasking used to be a necessity. I got ill one day and decided to make a change in my life and part of that change was prioritizing what was important vs unimportant and stick to focusing on the important things. What wound up happening is that I paid a lot more attention to my husband and children and a lot less on my job, my body, my hair, my skin, my friends, my acquaintances, my perfectly clean home…..and everything else that distracted me from what was really important – my family.
    Multitasking allows us to create an illusion that we are superman(woman). It is only an illusion though.

    • Justin G. Bautista

      We can do so much, but it doesn’t mean that we have to do all of them.

  • http://Fizex.wordpress.com Rodan

    Nice.
    Before smartphones I would often tell proudly self proclaimed “multitaskers” that multitasking is doing multiple things, poorly. That didn’t make a lot of friends. Now I do it all the time. In fact I’m reroofing my house right now and shot a nail through my foot. I’d dread going to the hospital without my smartphone!

  • http://whatisselfdefense.wordpress.com InnerWarriorMA

    Interesting stuff…. I prefer to mulitask when I’m doing chores or things I dont really enjoy. For one its easy for me to split my body and brain. I can easily fold clothes and watch TV and not miss out on anything. Yet I am completely with you when it comes to enjoyable or pleasurable activities. If it is something to enjoy center in and shut everything else off, experience it fully.

  • http://smaktakula.wordpress.com Smaktakula

    Great post. Time management is one of my (many) Achilles’ heels.

  • http://brockheasleydotcom.wordpress.com Brock

    I friggin’ hate cell phones. For all these reasons and more. I’ve never owned a cell phone and I hope I never will. I’m a big believer in single tasking and I think distraction is one of the world’s great evils. Thanks for this post. Now I gotta go share it.

  • http://dreamslifeluv.wordpress.com dreamslifeluv

    So truee…Busy Lives and on top of that ..new mobile phone apps to make your life more miserable by keeping a track of all your activities every time… Really liked your post !

    • Justin G. Bautista

      Why’d you have to track down every activities you’ve engaged? Or why check-in to every place you are in? That’s silly.

  • http://unravelingmyself.wordpress.com unravelingmyself

    The concept of the Phone Stack is fantastic! The only hurdle I foresee is, actually getting people to do it. People now-a-days are too attached to their phones, too many would be lost without them.

    I have a terrible habit of overly multitasking and just recently I have been trying to readjust myself to focus on one task at a time. As you said, it is more productive and the knowledge and accomplishment you feel after giving a task your all is well worth it.

    Your post is actually the big push I needed. Thanks!

  • http://thewriteedge.wordpress.com thewriteedge

    While the idea of multi-tasking seems nice, it’s true: in reality, much of the time when we try to multi-task we don’t get as much done and we’re less productive on the tasks we actually do complete. Having “upped the ante” in my own professional path recently, I’ve decided to take take the single-task approach with a major difference: because of my responsibilities toward both my career and my family (and because I’m working from home) my day is VERY busy. Every single hour is accounted for, and every hour has a specific task assigned to it. Often I don’t have more than that hour or so to commit to the task, but then I’ve found I’m more productive in that one hour because I know what I don’t get in that hour today will have to wait for tomorrow.

    I’m exhausted by the end of the day, but I’m also having the most fun in my career that I’ve ever had. I also have a great situation where I can work from home, so that means that in some of those hours I’m doing sole manual labor: scrubbing toilets, folding laundry, cooking meals. Every day has a mix of manual and intellectual labor, and every task gets my full attention. I guess you could call what I’m doing high adrenaline single tasking. I’m productive and getting things done. I’m tired at the end of the day, but I have the satisfaction of knowing I gave every task my all.

    • Justin G. Bautista

      That’s a great feeling to be satisfied and accomplished! And just let that tiredness retire with this wonderful thing called sleep (or rest).

  • minnesotatransplant

    Love the concept of the Phone Stack. It would work in a family, too– instead of having to pay for dinner, the “lower” is the one who cleans up. Very much appreciated this ode to single-tasking.

  • http://simplicityishappiness.wordpress.com simplicityishappiness

    Well i cant multi-task for nuts though, interesting post :)

    Reblogged this on Simplicity-is-happiness's Blog.

  • http://katrinanofear.wordpress.com Katrina

    I agree with you completely, I’ve been denied jobs because I couldn’t adequately explain ‘how’ I multitask. How do you put something like that into words, especially when you’re talking about 3-5 small tasks which by themselves take 5 minutes or less anyway? Plus if employers weren’t so focused on people who multitask, there would be at least a few more jobs available.

    • Justin G. Bautista

      That’s what I thought also. More jobs for people, so more people will have buying capabilities; which in turn helps the economy where every company and individual benefits.

  • http://joxtapose.wordpress.com Jox

    Multi-tasking has been working for me so much so that my dad hates me whenever we have a conversation coz I do a trillion things while he wants me to just focus on him while talking. He thinks that I don’t care when in fact I just can’t get it out of my system. I really must try to stop myself.

  • http://vanessachapman.wordpress.com Vanessa Chapman

    Nice photo of the guy with the laptop – not sure I’d get many tasks done at all if he was around to distract me! ;)

    I did manage to get past the photo though and read your post. You’re so right; I always feel like a failure if I’m not doing several things at once. Even if I allow myself to watch TV without doing anything else, I still have to leap out of the couch at every commercial break to put some laundry in the machine, or put dishes dishes away or whatever. Am I any more productive being this way than if I allowed myself to just focus on one thing at a time? Of course not.

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