You can't multitask!

I always like to end my day by asking myself a question. Changing that question very slightly made me achieve so much more.

The question I used to ask myself was: “what have I done today” but I now ask “what have I completed today”. 

I will be honest with you. I am the sort of person who takes a lot on. I never shy away from big projects or asks. I pride myself on achieving what other people have said is “impossible”.  I used to think that this was because I was good at multitasking. 

That was before I learnt the truth. 

Do you think you're good at multitasking? I am sorry to tell you this but, no you're not. 

The truth is no one is good at multitasking, it's not actually how the human brain works. We are only capable of thinking about one task at a time.  All we're doing when we multitask is quickly switching from one task to the next. So it might seem like we're making faster progress but actually we're not.  Chances are we are in fact being less efficient than completing one task before we start the next. 

If you've ever seen the episode of dad's army. Where Jones drives two vehicles at the same time, what it does is he drives one forward, runs back to the previous vehicle, drives that forward then drives the first one forward again, runs back to the other one drives that forward and so on and so on. Very funny and easy to spot that he is making no faster progress than he would walking. 

In reality we are all corporal Jones. With the best of intentions we spend half of our lives running back for that second car. 

Now he feels like he's getting the vehicles forward quicker. In reality, he's not. And this is what we're doing when we're multitasking. We're doing a little bit of one job and then a little bit of another job but we feel like we're completing both jobs. 

Now as butlers we often say we're great at multitasking. 

But what we're actually good at doing is managing this switching between different tasks with the minimal of problems and the minimal of interruptions. So rather than saying we're good at multitasking what we should say is we're good at task management.

Inevitably when you are working in private service, you will often be juggling many tasks at any one time. It is often not within your control to say “let me just finish what I am doing before you ask me to do something else” 

But is that exactly what we should be doing? The world moves at such a fast pace now, all the information that has ever been recorded is accessible in the palm of your hand. There are labour saving apps for everything.  So doesn't that mean our job is easier? Unfortunately not. The only thing to move quicker than technology is client expectations. 

With this in mind we need to be honest with ourselves and with our principals.

It is important that we explain our progress of the thousands of projects that they have given us and be realistic as to how quickly we can accomplish them.

The first step is to make them understand why we need to stay focused on our goals and how this benefits them.

If we stay focused on completing the tasks that we are doing before we start new ones we will be far more productive. At the end of the day one completed task has more value than ten half finished ones. 

I have written extensively about the importance of YES. I always say that we should not shy away from any request but rather embrace each new challenge with enthusiasm and excitement. I am by no means changing my view on this. I still say yes to each new challenge. It is however important to set realistic goals and say “It would be my pleasure to do ‘Z’ for you, is it ok if I tackle it when I have completed ‘X’ and ‘Y’? 

We all want to please people, we all want to exceed the expectations of our clients and that is a wonderful thing. We will however never exceed expectations if we do not achieve our goals. It is rare that we are judged on how busy we are, we are normally judged on results. 

When we take on too much we not only run the risk of not meeting our targets or even achieving anything. We also run the risk of burning ourselves out. Maybe we will stop enjoying our jobs or we may even make ourselves sick both physically and mentally. Just like the stewardess tells us every time we fly “put on your oxygen mask before helping others”. 

As always, thank you for reading. I hope at best you have found this interesting and insightful. Maybe you don't agree and that is just fine. I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. 

Yours sincerely Simeon