Multitasking at work

Don’t believe the hype: multitasking is for PCs not people. Learn how to free up your frenetic workload

Trying to keep your plates spinning or continually juggling to ensure all the balls stay up in play? Then it sounds like you are already the star performer in the melodrama of multitasking.

Simply put, multitasking is trying to do too many things at once. It may be answering the phone, reading your emails and making a list, all at the same time, or trying to handle too many projects at once, or even cramming in a busy social life on top of an already demanding job. Pressure in the modern workplace leads many of us to think that if we can do two things at once, we could save time, take on more and be more satisfied. What actually happens is that more mistakes are made, so we have to do tasks more than once, effectively lowering our achievement levels and creating frustration for those we work with and ourselves.

In today’s workplace, the skill of multitasking has been elevated to a quality to aspire to. It is made out to be a skill that we should all master. But in reality, it is a style that can spiral out of control and dump us in some sticky situations.

There are many reasons why multitasking is expected. Our pace of life has speeded up. We have more opportunities, higher expectations and everything is expected in an instant – fast travel, fast food, instant information and instant communication. But tasks take time, whether you are doing them for yourself or someone else.

So how can we opt out of starring in the melodrama of multitasking and improve our performance at work?

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