Today, I’d like to…just a second…I need to check email on my phone…almost done…now, where was I? Oh, yes, I was saying that…hold on…just got a text…typing my reply now…adding the bitmoji…hitting send. OK, where were we?
While multitasking may not seem this abrupt and annoying in daily interactions, make no mistake…it is! Studies show people check their smart phones, on average, every 6 ½ minutes, or 150 times a day. This constant shuffling back and forth between tasks has become the norm and is assumed by many to be a hallmark of highly productive people. It is not. The data show that when people switch between tasks they take up to 30% longer to complete them and make twice as many errors as those that don’t switch.
One solution to multitasking is to carve out uninterrupted blocks of time in your schedule. Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn said, “The key of time management is carving out time to think as opposed to constantly reacting. If you don’t take the time to think proactively, you will constantly be reacting to your environment, rather than influencing it.”
In my new business graphic novel, StrategyMan Vs. The Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan (named Best Strategy Book of 2018 by Axiom Business Book Awards), the villains that represents this issue are Multi-Taskinators. To see the full range of villain cards and explore more than 200 resources on strategic thinking development including the StrategyMan E-Learning Program, visit www.StrategySkills.com and join the League of Strategists today.
As a preview, here is the Table of Contents for the StrategyMan book:
