Multitasking is Killing Your Productivity – Here’s How You Can Save It

Multitasking is a myth — and it's a lethal one for your small business. Here’s how you can keep it from absolutely killing your productivity.

Just like every other small business owner, I juggle a lot of tasks as the owner and founder of WORKetc.

One minute I’m overseeing development on our web app, and the next I’m on a sales call with a potential customer.

Sales, support, projects, finance—I’m basically both leader and member of these very different departments and more. I’m constantly switching between roles, tackling multiple tasks left and right.

That must mean I’m a multitasking god, right?

Wrong!

According to research by David Strayer, Professor of Psychology at the University of Utah, only around 2% of people are actually able to really multitask.

I know that I’m not in that 2%. Chances are you aren’t either.

And when we do try to multitask, we’re actually shooting ourselves in the foot. We end up killing our productivity and our efficiency.

Here are a few tips on how to avoid the pitfalls of multitasking using WORKetc.

Don’t Multitask; Singletask!

As Psychology Today notes, the term “multitasking” is actually a misnomer.

We’re not really doing multiple tasks at the same time; we’re actually switching rapidly between these tasks, hence the much more correct term, “task-switching”.

The more that our brains keep switching between tasks, the longer it takes to complete them and the more prone we are to making errors in the process.

A study conducted by professor Gloria Mark of UC Irvine’s Department of Informatics has shown that it takes us an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task we were working on after being interrupted.

Multitasking, which basically puts yourself in a position of constant interruption, actually wastes a considerable amount of time and productivity.

Just three interruptions in a day and that’s over an hour of wasted time; almost six hours’ worth of lost man-hours in a week.

So instead of forcing your brain to keep switching between tasks, just focus on one task at a time. This is called “singletasking”.

One simple way to help you keep your focus when singletasking is to create a task list and follow it to the letter.

WORKetc already has a built in task list, so you’ll always have a way to keep track of what you need to do.

Aside from listing all tasks assigned to you, you can also filter and save the list according to its status, project type, client, who they’re assigned to, and when things are due.

For example, if you want to work on a specific project, you can filter the list to see only the tasks that are assigned to you, and that are connected to that specific project.

If you want to focus on helping a specific client, you can also filter only for tasks created for that particular client.

And finally, your task list is there where you need to do your work. You can access it through any web browser, and if you’re out in the field, you can even access it through WORKetc’s iOS and Android mobile apps.

Schedule Similar Tasks Together

The big problem with task-switching is that you end up paying considerable productivity costs for very little gain.

This is most apparent when you’re switching between two wildly different tasks. Talking on your phone while driving, for example.

Let’s say the first thing that you do when you get to work is check your email.

Now, if you come across any emails that would require you doing anything other than just reading and replying, you can shunt it off to one side for later. This is where the WORKetc Gmail gadget helps immensely.

Using the gadget, you don’t just set aside that email for later, you can actually turn it into a task, a sales lead, a support case, or a project update, without ever leaving Gmail (or Outlook, if you’re using the Outlook add-in to do the same thing).

If you come across something best handled by someone else, you can quickly create a task and assign it to the most appropriate person within a few seconds, right from your inbox.

When a client emails about an issue in their latest invoice, for example, you can immediately create and assign a task to someone from your billing department so they can quickly address the client’s concerns.

You can even attach the client’s original email to the task so the person that you assigned it to can reply to the client directly.

By doing this, you get to stick to one task—checking emails—while preparing your tasks for the day at the same time. And it all happens without having to switch apps and suffer the consequences of context-switching.

When you’re done with that, you simply fire up WORKetc and open your own contact page.

All those tasks, support tickets, and leads that you created using the Gmail gadget? They’ll show up on your activity stream, along with any other items that may have been assigned to you.

Your own personal WORKetc activity stream is a running record of everything you’ve done and need to do for a client. It’s the entire customer lifecycle at a glance, with all of the data you need available to you with a few simple clicks.

I mentioned earlier that constant task-switching adversely affects your productivity. This is due to changes in context; when you work on a sales lead and then immediately switch to working on a support ticket, for example, your brain needs some time to recalibrate itself for the next task.

That lost time adds up. You can stand to lose up to 40% of your productivity because of these brief mental blocks caused by constant context-switching, according to the American Psychological Association.

A solution to this is to clustertask—do related tasks, one after the other, in one go. This way, your brain doesn’t have to recalibrate itself too much between each different task.

Similar to the task list, you can use filters on your WORKetc activity stream to quickly access the information most relevant to you, exactly when you need it.

It’s not just limited to tasks, either. You can see all types of WORKetc activities and items in your activity stream: from your emails and discussions to support cases and invoices.

Want to work on support tickets? Just filter according to activity type and tick the “Support Cases” checkbox. Want to lock down a few leads? Create an activity type filter for them.

Saved filters on your activity stream let you quickly pinpoint, concentrate, and work more efficiently on related tasks. Trust me, your brain—and your business—will thank you for it.

Run Your Business with a Single App

It might sound cool to have separate apps for each aspect of your business: “Oh, billing? Yeah, I’ve got an app for that. Projects? We have a different one for that, too.”

In reality, it’s not just expensive in terms of money (all those subscriptions can add up to a big chunk of your budget)—constantly switching between multiple apps carries the same productivity costs as task-switching.

Context-switching rears its ugly head again here. Not only are you switching between tasks, you’re also switching between two completely different apps with completely different user interfaces.

Not only does your brain have to think about what to do and how to do it, it has to do that within the context of this new app UI that you’re staring at.

It’s hard enough to focus when you’re constantly tasked with switching on a single app, so imagine how much harder it would be doing that on multiple apps.

Now, I happen to enjoy that we have a very healthy app economy right now. These days, I could likely find an app for pretty much anything that I need to do.

But when it comes to running, managing, and growing a small business, too many apps can just be too much of a good thing.

In fact, according to a recent survey by Harmon.ie, 67% of their respondents believed that they would be better able to focus on their tasks if they were able to do it using only one app.

One of the main issues identified by the survey was the headaches caused by having information in different, separate apps.

Some respondents had to open multiple windows to find information, and some still said that sometimes they couldn’t even find what they needed after searching through many different apps.

Combining your CRM, projects, sales, support, and billing in one business management platform like WORKetc makes the issue of app-switching and its accompanying productivity costs moot.

Consider Perth-based IT firm Atcom Technology’s support workflow before they were using WORKetc:

A lot of steps, and related issues sometimes fall through the cracks. Plus, completing the whole process involves switching between different apps multiple times.

Remember how I mentioned that task-switching can make you up to 40% less productive? Those findings seemed to hold true for Atcom, and then some.

Company Director, Malissa Fonte reveals that their support agents typically took at least an hour for a single support ticket to go through the entire process.

Once they implemented WORKetc and became able to access all of the information they needed in a single app (and even a single browser tab, really), they were able to cut that hour down to a three-step process that takes a total of 20 minutes.

That’s an increase in efficiency of at least 67%—and pretty much all that Atcom did was put all of the information they had currently stored in different apps in the one place.

One app, all of your information. No switching necessary.

That’s what WORKetc as a platform can do. And that’s how I’ve been able to run WORKetc the business without being a multitasking god.