March 27, 2007

8 Reasons to Do Less to Accomplish More   It's an all too familiar scene: focusing your attention on more than one thing at a time in the hopes you accomplish more in a set period of time.    Do you check your email while looking through the snail mail, while drinking a cup of coffee, while talking to an employee about her vacation days, while waiting for a fax to come in, while gathering the material you need for a meeting you have later in the day?   Whew, that's exhausting!   Think you're ahead of the game by doing many things at once?  Think again.    Pitfalls of multitasking include: Quality will be compromised.  Pretending to focus on several tasks at once leaves you unable to give each task the attention it deserves to obtain a satisfactory outcome.  It is better to complete one thing well before you move on to another project. Relationships can suffer.  Have you ever carried on a conversation with someone while searching the net, watching TV, balancing your checkbook, or reading the newspaper?  Your loved ones, peers, employees, friends, etc. know when they do not have your undivided attention.  You are not present in the moment.  Your scattered attention leaves you unable to focus on the task or the event at hand. Your enjoyment level decreases as the number of tasks increases.  Multitasking is stressful! Decreased efficiency.  A string of incompletes follows you because you're unable to finish one task before you move on to another one. Your organization is also compromised.  You are tired.  Fatigue sets in as you flip flop from one undertaking to another. Accidents occur with greater frequency.  Do you eat, apply makeup, talk on the phone, fumble with your PDA, and/or read the newspaper while you're driving? It takes MORE time to multitask!  You will spend time correcting your errors, refocusing, and redoing tasks which have not been finished to your satisfaction.    Yes, that's right.  Multitasking is time consuming. It defeats the purpose of why you multitasked in the first place.  You might think you're achieving more, but that is not the case.  Go ahead and give it a try.  Do less and then celebrate your accomplishments.          "Trying to do two or three things at once or in quick succession can take longer overall than doing them one at a time, and may leave you with reduced brainpower to perform each task." David E. Meyer, director of the Brain, Cognition and Action Laboratory at the University of Michigan   "Anytime you're trying to multitask, you have less attention available to store memories. For example, a person who tries to read email while talking on the phone will have a hard time retaining any of the information. And if the phone rings while a person's in the middle of a thought, it will take a while to find that thought again -- assuming it can be recovered at all." David E. Meyer   "You lose time switching between tasks, research shows, and that increases with the complexity of the tasks. And all that multitasking can cause your brain to crash momentary - blanking out in what some call "a senior's moment" - or to not work as efficiently." Wall Street Journal Columnist Sue Shellenbarger        I stopped multitasking this past week so I could focus on one project at a time.  It was tough because my mind wanted to take me to my land of incompletes, i.e. my book. So I gave myself a certain amount of time to focus on each task before I moved on to another one.  That worked well.   I spent part of the week completing my preparation for the "7 Steps to Implanting Balance Into Your Life" presentation I gave to a group of dentists in St. Louis. It was great fun and well received.  Nobel Biocare's upcoming World Conference sounds like a fabulous event so for more information click here.     Finishing our income tax is on my plate for this week.   Now, that takes focus and top priority.  Everything else will have to wait.   Have a fantastic week and do less to accomplish more.   Stephanie        We grow by "word-of-email" so please feel free to forward this newsletter to anyone whom you think might benefit from and enjoy it. Thanks so much! Contact Us: stephanie@7steps2abalancedlife.com