Admit it, we all do it! I am talking about multitasking – a quality we all feel proud of. We all text while walking, send emails or chat during meetings, check our social accounts while cooking or having meals. In our busy lives, we get tempted to do too many things at once. But the truth is, you’re not doing any favour to yourself or your boss or your family and friends. Instead, you are harming your health and productivity too.
And if you are the boss, well I should not even start to count the reasons why you should multitask! Firstly, you could very well cause yourself to burn-out and exhaust yourself. Secondly, you might need to look at various processes of your business, and multitasking might just end up overlapping a few, creating further problems in your ongoing project. So, why not give yourself a break, and invest in a ppm software that could handle your project for you?
It is completely up to you though, how you decide to improve on your multitasking skills, or if you avoid doing so completely. For now, here are a few reasons why you should go easy on yourself and steer clear of juggling different things at the same time:
It actually wastes time
Multitasking will not save your time. It just slows you down. Imagine if a driver is fiddling with the radio continuously, it will take him longer to reach the destination. In the same way, if you get distracted repeatedly while doing an important stuff, it will eat up more time.
Affects your productivity
Think it in this way, you just read that multitasking will eventually waste your time because if you try to do more than one activity at the same time, it will affect your ability to complete the task as you are not able to pay attention to one task completely.
You will commit more mistakes
You may know this already, switching between tasks can cause a person to make silly mistakes. If your attention is divided between several tasks, the rate of your mistakes will eventually multiply.
It can be dangerous
At times, multitasking can be potentially dangerous, like when you are busy texting or calling someone while driving or while cooking keeping an eye on your phone. It can lead to accidents and put your and others’ lives at risk.
It inhibits your creativity
This is one of the major downsides of multitasking. Devoting your attention on too many tasks can hamper your creativity. You won’t be left with enough working memory to think up creative ways to complete your assignments, thus your output will never be above satisfactory.
It stops you from enjoying life
When you are around your family, friends and loved ones and you pay attention to other things like completing a project instead of interacting and enjoying with them – it can severely affect your relationships. We get so engrossed in technology that we forget to enjoy life.
It damages your memory
A study predicted that quickly shifting from one task to another impacts your short-term memory negatively. The signs become more visible as you age. Think of a situation where you are trying to read a book and watch television, you are surely going to miss on important details about one or the other thing.
It creates anxiety and stress
A major downfall of multitasking is on your mental health. It creates the feeling of anxiety because your attention is constantly divided. Multitasking also contributes to the stress levels in employees who tend to check their office emails regularly. They stay in steady “high alert” state.
