So, Can We Multi-Task?

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One of my first clients told me she listens to podcasts while she works. Let’s dig into multi-tasking – when we can, and when we can’t.

Full transcript:

Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the bright method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally. Let’s get you falling asleep, proud of what you got done today, and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in.

Hey, hey. All right. Today we’re gonna talk about multitasking, which I’m actually surprised it took us so long to get there. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it a little bit in episodes, but I don’t think we’ve had a standalone episode on it. Although, candidly, we’re getting to the point where I’m like, what have I done an episode on?

So we’ll find out altogether, but. I do think it’s really important to think about multitasking because I think a lot of us think we can do it. I even see things online that are like, moms are so great at multitasking. It’s like, no, not, not really, [00:01:00] because here’s the thing. Studies consistently show that we can’t, and yet we kind of think we can.

One of my very first clients. I mean, it was like brand new at this. I was in San Diego, I was in her office and she just casually mentioned to me that she listened to podcasts while she worked in the office. And I remember feeling really exhausted and confused and scattered thinking about it, but then also kind of fascinated.

I was like, man, if you can do this, I’m like really fascinated to understand how you can, and turns out she couldn’t. And that’s was something to think about as we’re gonna talk about today. But I bring it up not to put her down. ’cause I think a lot of us think that way and think we can, and that’s why I wanna talk about it because a lot of us think on some level that we can, and part of this comes from the fact that sometimes we can, like in the sense that we can do things simultaneously successfully.[00:02:00]

Like I can walk my dog and listen to an audio book or call a friend and I’m doing two different things simultaneously. So doesn’t that mean that I’m multitasking? Doing so successfully, and so can we multitask or not? And the first time I got clarity on this, I was reading Essentialism by Greg McEwen and he said, quote unquote, we can do multiple things at once, but we can’t concentrate on multiple things at once.

And that’s exactly it. I think what it really comes down to for me is that we cannot multi focus. We can only focus on one thing at a time. If you can do something on autopilot at the same time, then that can work. But we cannot multi focus on two things, and scientific studies really back this up. People can do two things at once, only when one of them is relatively automatic, but when both tasks require, again.[00:03:00]

Deliberate attention, working memory, making decisions we can’t, and if we try performance on both of those things drops. You get slower at resolving both of them. You usually get more errors involved when you’re trying. One thing I thought was interesting that studies show is that you get more easily distracted by irrelevant information, which I can totally see.

And I think all of this, just as a side note, is important to understand that it is also true in that driving context. And when you are hands free, it actually doesn’t really help it because it’s around where our brain is. It’s not where our hands are necessarily. So I just throw that out there as something to consider as well.

So all of this explains why, again, you can listen to a podcast. Why all walking your dog or folding laundry, but you can’t do so effectively while you work. You can only focus on one thing at a time. You can only add in [00:04:00] additional activities to that focused activity if they’re basically muscle memory activities requiring very little brain attention.

I think a good example of this is sometimes like if you’re cooking and listening to a podcast or an audio book or something, you can do that easily while you’re chopping things. But if you have to read a recipe, like you really need to stop whatever you’re listening to, if you actually wanna listen to it, to read the recipe, and then you might be able to go back to it once you’re doing like monotonous things like chopping.

And again, that’s ’cause you’re doing something on autopilot versus trying to focus on two things at the same time. I think that this all might have been very obvious to you. For me it was a profound light bulb moment to have it articulated so clearly because I was like, well, I know I can do some things together, but I just can’t do other things together.

And it’s a simple. Framework, I guess. But it’s very helpful when you’re running up against things, being like, why isn’t this working? Is just being able to ask yourself, am I trying to focus on two things? ’cause that might be the issue more than I realized. Like I thought one of these [00:05:00] was a little more on autopilot, but maybe it’s not.

I also wanna flag here that this is something that I struggle with when clients, or I hear women talk about it, where they’re like processing email while watching TV or something like that. You do whatever you wanna do, truly like you do whatever you wanna do. It’s obviously your decision. I don’t think you’re probably doing email well if you’re doing that or enjoying tv or the overall experience as much as you think by doing that.

And I wonder, just something to experiment with or completely ignore if you want, is if you just spent 30, 45 minutes processing email. With focus and then turn to the TV watching if you would be better at the email and actually enjoy the TV time in a whole different way. So just throwing it out there, you can do with it what you want.

So I wanna wrap this up a little bit with more [00:06:00] of the practical, like what does this mean? Because I think that there are some scenarios where there just are a lot of things flying at us. No matter how organized we are, no matter what our calendars look like, life happens, things happen, and. I really think of it as the morning rush, like the morning rush to get out the door.

There just are lots of little things flying at us that aren’t necessarily part of the routine. It’s like, oh yeah, I need this for school today, or I can’t find this. Where is that? And you realize you didn’t try the laundry and you have to scramble for that or. Really need to get the, I don’t know, the dishwasher empty and run again before I leave that I, you know, whatever it is.

All those little like anomaly things that come up on a one-off basis. ’cause every day’s different. We can organize everything, but like new things fly at us and that is just reality. I. When all those things fly at us, I think that’s such a ripe place to think like, I need to multitask and do all these things at the same time.

When in reality it’s really gonna get done more by quick task switching [00:07:00] and instead of like doing them all at the same time. And it can get very overwhelming in our brain to try and carry these five like new things that are all happening and we’re trying to do them all at the same time. And so I might be blending like.

Task switching with multitasking and all these things. But at the reality, at the end of the day, like I don’t really know what exact intellectual pot I’m in, but I’m talking about the reality of the experience. And to me, that’s the time of day when I feel the most, like I need to do five things at the same time.

What I wanna share is something that I find very helpful is keeping, and again, I love a digital calendar, all of that, but at the end of the day, sometimes it’s not even a calendar thing in the chaos of the morning. And what I love doing is getting out a notebook, piece of paper, back of an envelope, post-it note whatever is in the kitchen.

I have a little like notebooks and post-it notes in a like junk drawer type thing in my kitchen. Grab those out and just brain dump all the things. Flying at me doesn’t even mean like it is the [00:08:00] things I wanna do that morning, and sometimes it’s just random ideas that are coming at me for other things.

I write them all down and then I try and bang them out in order. Or, I mean, any order, just one at a time. Because when you try and do. All of them at the same time. It’s just too chaotic. You forget things you remember right when a kid’s getting on the bus, one of the things that needed to happen, all that kind of stuff where if you can write it down and just like bang them out one by one, it’s so much more effective.

Now what I also wanna say here though, is sometimes we do things that can’t be wrapped up before the next thing has to happen. And I’m thinking here, like again, you discovered that something that you thought was dry and the dryer isn’t actually dry and needs to be. Put on the fast cycle for like 10 or 15 minutes.

That’s the type of thing that you go down and do. I would prioritize that in the sense of like that whole getting the machines running first here, it’s the literal one. I would prioritize that, get that going, and then I would set a timer for 10 minutes or 15 minutes so that it reminds me to come back to it.

But that [00:09:00] allows me then to free up my focus to focus on other things for the next 10 or 15 minutes. So I’m just sharing this. It’s like kind of random, but I think it’s helpful to have like a. Many way you handle those scenarios. When you’re most tempted to multitask and think that you can and think that you need to is first write them all down so they’re out of your head, and then attack them methodically and in order and with timers if you need to remember to come back to something or start something at a certain time too, and then really try to bang them out.

What I do after that, let’s say I’m like. I did all the things I need to do. The kids are gone. There might be some remaining things on there, and I’ve just captured them there, but they don’t have to happen right now. That’s when I would calendar them out, or I would put them on the stairs to then take to my office to eventually calendar them out.

So it’s not like I’m doing everything on that list. Sometimes it’s [00:10:00] more just I’m capturing everything coming to mind. Doing the things I need to do, using timers to help me do that. And then anything else that hasn’t happened that needs to happen can go through that bridging process into the calendar and then slowing down, zooming out, looking longer term outside of those moments, outside of those like five new things flying at you.

Small things that have to happen quickly, moments, the ability to focus on one thing at a time. To me. Fully comes down to understanding that I do not need to focus on anything else at that time, and to get there, that requires a lot of clarity on, on what are all the things I have to do. They have other time in my calendar protected to do them.

That plan is realistic. Given everything I have going on and the curve balls and all of that, I can trust the plan. For the most part, obviously curve balls happen, but we adjust when they do. But [00:11:00] baseline, if there are no curve balls, I know this works and even with the normal day-to-day curve balls, I know it works.

That allows me to fully focus on whatever I’m choosing to focus on, whether it’s focusing on something at work and that one thing at work, or being present with friends, family, whoever it is outside of work or with myself too. That is obviously a much larger conversation. It’s the whole gripe method, but I just wanted to point that out that if you’re like, this sounds great.

I want to focus on one thing at a time, but I’m not sure what to focus on. I’m worried if I don’t focus on these five other things they won’t get done. That type of feeling. Very fair. Very fair feeling. We need to get you using a system that helps you answer those questions and have clarity around those questions so that you can focus on one thing at a time.

And if you wanna try out the Bright Method with that, awesome. You can go to kelly nolan.com/refresh. It’s a little slow ’cause it’s a redirect, but just go to kelly [00:12:00] nolan.com/refresh and that will take you to a free five day program signup. You can jump right in for free and check it out for free. Now I do wanna address that.

All of this is not perfect, right? We still have distractions that come up, and that is a separate topic that I should probably address and feel free to message me about like the top distractions that happen for you. I do wanna note I am recording this at the height of a very difficult time in the country, especially in Minnesota right now.

And if you want, I won’t go into all of that right now, but if you wanna check it out, I have a highlight on my Instagram about it. But. A major distraction is obviously the state of the world and social media that is in particular. And so for purposes of today, I just wanted to remind you, first of all, take action.

I’m not saying turn away, absolutely not take action, but when consumption of social media provides a [00:13:00] distraction that’s only hurting you and not helping prompt you to take action, that’s when I think we do want to. Give ourselves sanity breaks from it, you know, so because it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and so I just wanna remind you of the app Opal, O-P-A-L-I do pay for it so that you can use the setting that helps you not override it.

Because I think a lot of screen time things. The downfall is that you cannot override it if you just wait a little bit and this one you can’t. And so I pay for Opal. I believe it’s about a hundred dollars a year. To me, it is well worth it for the sanity and the sleep that it gives me. I lock myself out from four to five 30 every day.

I lock myself out from 8:00 PM to 5:00 AM every day. These things help me spend time with my kids and also not sacrifice my sleep. And I also have been using it more on an ad hoc basis these days just to. Save my sanity and get some stuff done. So I wanted to share that with you because I think it’s really, [00:14:00] it’s so valuable and I know that it’s not exactly what we were talking about today at all, but I do think that if we’re working hard to focus.

We also need to address the things that draw our focus away with distraction and social media is so one of them, especially at times like this. And so I just wanted to share it for you again today in case it is helpful because it is hugely helpful to me. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. I hope it’s helpful.

Most importantly, thank you for being here and I’ll catch you in the next episode.

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So, Can We Multi-Task?

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