A Guide to Multitasking
- 1). Create a schedule, and plan ahead. Mapping out activities and predetermining the amount of time needed for the demands of your day enables you to pair tasks that can be completed simultaneously. Thinking ahead allows you to organize your schedule in a way that maximizes your ability to multitask. Planning your week may make it possible for you to avoid two or three trips to a geographic area over a given set of days, performing tasks in that location during one day instead. As Laura Vanderkam wrote in a BNET website column, the most important time management tip is realizing that minutes and hours are available, and you have a blank slate for 168 hours each week.
- 2). Combine complementary activities. Multitasking requires pairing activities correctly. One form is pairing less cognitive activities -- exercising, cleaning, painting fingernails and data entry type of computer tasks -- with higher cognitive activities -- reading a book, listening to a phone conference, writing an email and talking to your spouse.
- 3). Delegate your workload. This is an effective way to multitask and to improve your leadership. Freeing your workload will multiply your work effectiveness and may provide a growth opportunity for other people. Although delegation requires that you plan and prioritize your tasks and projects, the return on investment is sizable.
- 4). Provide yourself adequate sleep and exercise. Rest gives the mind time to rest and reorganize. Drawing upon the law of diminishing returns, you will reach a point at which your work's quality reduces and work error increases if you do not give your brain a chance to lessen stress and recuperate from the day's multiple demands. The number of tasks that you can handle, or multitask, will decrease. For this reason, periodic breaks and a regular sleep pattern improve the multitasking threshold. Similarly, getting physical improves work effectiveness. Georgia Health Sciences University researchers found that regular exercise increased brain activity in the brain's prefrontal cortex, an area associated with complex thinking, decision-making and correct social behavior. These attributes are very important to a person's ability to multitask.
