Do You Consider Yourself a Good Multi-Tasker?

How many times in the past 30 days have you heard or read about
multi-tasking? 10-25-maybe 50?

I would be shocked if it was not at least in the double digits.

Usually at the beginning of every year the Multi-Tasking movement
gains some serious momentum.  And why wouldn’t it…

We start the New Year with a list a mile long of things to fix in
our business, goals we need to accomplish, things are spouse wants
us to do, and so on and so on…

No surprise that in January and February we have all good intentions
to allocate adequate time to each item on the list.

But then…

Life happens- the phone rings, the blackberry buzzes, the email chime
on your computer makes you look, and God forbid you get interrupted
by a customer.  We get caught up the minutia and never get to the things
that will make the biggest difference in our lives.

What about you?  Are you constantly in a reactive state throughout the
day?  If you are…chances are this year is going to end up looking just
like last year or worse. 

Here is how to get control and get things done.

Every interruption that occurs takes on average 15
minutes to recover from?  (5 minutes to take care of the interruption,
5 minutes to literally remember what you were doing before the
interruption, and 5 minutes to get back to frame of mind you were in)

Now add ALL those 15 minute interruptions up and it’s easy to see what’s
TRULY causing you not get anything done in a day.

Now to be Authentic I must admit, Karry and I were both this way for
years.  We still have challenges with it from time to time.
 
About a year ago we started paying attention to those that were
successfully juggling multiple clients, multiple businesses, & multiple
projects.

The one thing they all had in common was “CHUNKING”!

Chunking is pretty elementary when you break it down. It is the idea of
taking your day and blocking out “specific time chunks”.  These “time chunks”
are for working on ONE item and that item only!

Your email, phone, blackberry, or whatever can wait until that time is up.

The KEY is NO Cheating…When that time is up you move on to something else.
Don’t keep working on it after the time you allocated is up. 

Remember, if done properly you have also chunked out time for other tasks that are
important to you as well. You are only cheating yourself.

For example, if you are writing an ad’-stop mid sentence. If you are reviewing sales
figures-stop, and even if you are doing something that feels like it HAS TO BE DONE-stop.

You might be asking yourself how is this effective?  If I am in the
middle of something wouldn’t it be best to finish it?  We thought that too.
But following the advice of some very productive people, we committed to
“following the rules” and it has no doubt made a huge difference.

It’s all about uninterrupted FOCUS during your dedicated “chunk”.

The old saying goes…it takes 21 days to make something a habit. After
it is a habit and you need 5 extra minutes to completely wrap up what you
were working on, take it. 

I warn you…do not get in a hurry to cheat the process. 

So, let’s recap…

In order to be an effective multi-tasker you MUST “Chunk” your time, and
stick to it. Turn your phones, emails, and blackberries off.  Put a
“do not disturb” sign on your door.

Dedicated To Increasing Your Cash Flow,
Chad & Karry
P.S.  One thing that always helped Karry and I remember the importance
of “chunking” were ALL the 15 minutes of our life we would never get back if
we continued to allow interruptions to occur.