Utkarsh Amitabh argues humans can't actually multitask well. He recommends one major daily goal plus two smaller ones, closing extra tabs, and using the Pomodoro method to focus. Many meetings lack clear purpose and waste attention you could spend on real work.
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Hi everyone. I'm here to talk to you about multitasking and how you can overcome some of the side effects that can happen when you're trying to accomplish multiple things at once. Humans are not designed for parallel processing, so the best way to multitask is to not multitask at all. If you want to advance your personal productivity and creativity, try and focus on one thing at a time. Instead of having hundreds of tabs open on your laptop, try and open one tab at a time, or at least focus on one key task. When I begin my day, I try and form one major goal and two subsidiary goals. Towards that end, I structure my day in a way that I can partake of deep, focused work when I'm writing, when I'm creating masterclasses, organizing fellowships, speaking to faculty. But there are times of the day when I do have to. It seems like the day is just getting beyond me and there are too many priorities that I need to take care of at that time. I check myself because I've noticed that whenever I've tried to pack too many things in a day, perhaps write something when I'm also chatting with somebody, responding to a query, taking care of something at home, that both the quality of writing suffers and also I end up doing silly mistakes or things that that could have easily been avoided if I was focused on that one task in a day. We can easily be seduced into believing that we need to work for 15, 18 hours. I don't think work should be measured in terms of number of hours that are met. Your work at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the year needs to be defined by the goals that you set. And the goals that you set can only be achieved or you can only achieve them, perhaps surpass them if they have your undivided attention, undivided energy, whatever periods of time that you can manage. We've previously discussed techniques such as the Pomodoro method, where you work, focus for 25 minutes, take a break for 5 minutes, and repeat this for as long as you can, and then give your time to unwind a bit to get back on track. I think that's far better approach than trying to constantly be in front of a screen or in front of a book. Where our mind is somewhere, energy is somewhere. Such kind of distracted attention often leads to people feeling fatigued or drained out of energy at the end of the day. In large companies, it's very common to fill the day with loads of meeting with loads of teams and stakeholders and when you actually talk to the people who are participating in such meetings, many times they don't even know why the meeting is happening. They don't know why they are there. So start by setting the goal for your day. Instead of trying to focus on three tasks at once, focus on one task at a time. Do that really well. Take a short break. Get to the next one. It will help you manage your energy and attention much better, and you will see that you will be able to give the right kind of intellectual attention and enthusiasm to the kind of work that you're doing. I have noticed that since I have tried to follow these simple practices of not having multiple tabs open, not doing three things at a time, I am able to pack a lot more in a week while creating more time for other pursuits and hobbies that I have in mind. So try this approach and let me know how you think about it. On NetworkCapital TV. It's our mission to help you build your category of one. And the first thing that you have to do when you do that is to bring your undivided, best version of yourself every single day. Don't get distracted too much. Do one thing at a time.
