So you think you can multitask? Is it a skill we can master, or are we just kidding ourselves?

by Michael James Wong

There are days where we think we can do everything, and we try to. Some days we might feel like we can’t do anything. In our society, we are often led to believe that if we do more, we’ve done more. We are rewarded for our capacity for doing many things all at once, but are the things we do of any meaningful quality? Or are we just ticking boxes, and living life a little too chaotically than needs be? 

Here are 5 reasons why we should stop multitasking so much. 

1. Thinly spread attention 

When we try and juggle a million things all at once, we are essentially asking our minds to focus on a multitude of different tasks that probably require different facets of your brain. This is no easy feat, and more often than not means we don’t do the tasks at hand any real justice. 

It’s a bit like trying to spread a little bit of buttercream icing over a very large cake. You try and spread it so it covers the entire thing, but it becomes so thin that you can see the cracks and gaps. 

This is what often happens when we multitask - we spread ourselves so thinly, thinking that we’ll get more done, but ultimately nothing gets attended to the way they should. The quality of the work at hand gets overshadowed by the quantity, and may even lead to it having to be re-done anyway. 

2. Burnout 

I think we’ve all had those moments where we think we’re invincible. We say yes to everything that comes our way, we try to maintain late nights and early mornings, desperately trying to prove that we can be social butterflies, work on several projects, and still sleep enough, eat well, exercise enough and have time to spare. 

However, sometimes when we succumb to the illusion that we are invincible, we end up sinking a little, dropping the ball, maybe even burning a few bridges and generally burning out.

Burnout is not fun, and is a sign that we have overloaded ourselves and we’re in need of hitting the pause button. 

3. Unrealistic to-do lists never get finished 

How long is your to-do list? Do you often make it to the bottom of the list, or does it seem to just keep going and going with no end in sight? 

I’ve been guilty in the past of writing huge to-do lists that realistically were never going to get done in the timeframe I had allocated. I would just end up frustrated, and then nothing would really get done. 

4. Doing more doesn’t have to be our marker of ‘success’

If 2020 has taught us one lesson, it’s that we have the ability to redefine how we want to live. As we have all (to some extent) slowed down, albeit because of something out of our control, it has given us the opportunity to reflect on what success is for us, what living is for us. 

I don’t know about you, but trying to keep up with being well conversed, well studied, well travelled, well exercised and all of the other things we thought we needed was a little exhausting. Yes, all of those things are important in their own right, but let’s slow down a bit and take our time. 

We don’t all have to live by the same schedule or work along the same timeline - so let’s start to redefine what success and living well really means to you. 

5. One thing at a time, not everything all at once 

With all of that said, I think instead of trying to multitask, we should practice focusing on one thing at a time. So let’s choose one thing on our to-list, and for the moment put everything else to one side. Once we have given that task our attention and completed it to the best of our ability, pick another task. Do this several times throughout the day, and you may just find that you feel more fulfilled and your life feels a little more within your control. 

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