Multi-tasking is a trap that will kill your business.
It's not that working on several areas of your business in a single day is, in and of itself, a bad thing. In fact, most days require you to do just that. But you need to get a grip on it if you want to be successful. It's all too easy to let yourself be interrupt-driven at the expense of staying in the flow.
The flow is that wonderful state in which you are so focused on the task at hand that you are fully immersed in the present moment. Typically you loose track of time when you're in the flow. And you are so mentally alert that you seem to channel solutions to problems with which you'd usually struggle. You are at your peak productivity and performance when you are in the flow.
Flow is the antithesis of multi-tasking.
Each time you interrupt your current task to turn your attention to something or someone else, you leave the state of flow. In addition, it takes a minimum of four minutes for you to return to the same state of concentration and focus you were in before the interruption. And in our small businesses, we can't afford to waste too many of those precious minutes.
How can you maximize your time in the flow, reduce multi-tasking, and still get everything done?
Through self-discipline and organization.
(I realize that it's not very politically correct of me to be talking about self-discipline—or discipline of any type—in today's corporate environment in which "chaos theory" is embraced as the natural order of things. My response? "Bull-pucky!" The ability to take charge of your impulses so you can focus your energy and attention on the task at hand is a necessary requirement for your business success.
Think about that for a minute and you'll agree. Do you want to work for someone who changes priorities from hour to hour? Or who tells you firmly today what is expected of you, and then tomorrow says they wanted you to be doing something else? Of course not! Yet that's the type of behavior exhibited by people who are lacking in self-discipline. But I digress...)
Are any of these situations common for you?
- The phone rings, and you stop whatever you're doing and automatically answer it.
- You're on the phone with a client when you get that beep telling you another call is coming in. You put your client on hold to take the incoming call.
- You're working on a project for a client when you get an inspiration for an article to put in your ezine. You stop what you're doing to write the article.
- You're creating your marketing plan and notice that you've got new email. You stop working on your marketing plan to check the new message.
Here's how you might minimize the impact of each of these situations on your focus and productivity:
- You can decide to return all phone calls between 9 and 10 AM and again between 3 and 4 PM. Tell all your clients that this is how you work. And be sure your phone's voice mail message states when your call-back times are.
- You can get Caller ID phone service to record the phone numbers for all incoming calls. After you complete your current call with your client, you can call back the second caller.
- You can use your Business Journal to capture all your inspirations. Just jot down your idea for an ezine article in your journal and jump back into your client's project. Later, when it's time for you to write articles for your ezine, pull out your journal, select one of the many topics you've captured, and get writing.
- You can schedule email checks to occur between your major daily tasks. For example, you can complete your work on your marketing plan and then check and respond to all the email messages that came in during that time. After you are caught up on your email messages, begin your next major task for the day. Ignore any incoming email messages until you complete that next task.
Don't fall into the trap of multi-tasking and being interrupt-driven. Start today to apply self-discipline, structure, and focus in how you run your business on a hour-by-hour basis.
