This Is KILLING Your Productivity
The Amplified Impact Podcast
August 8th, 2023
I’ve got a bone to pick with the ultimate productivity myth…multitasking.
I used to believe I was a multitasking maestro too, juggling writing, social media, and more, all at once.
But here’s the truth bomb…multitasking is a total sham.
Your brain isn’t a supercomputer, it’s more like a clunky switchboard.
When you think you’re multitasking, you’re actually just switching between tasks in rapid-fire.
It’s actually a massive productivity buzzkill. Studies have shown that we’re way less efficient and effective when we try to do it all simultaneously.
The quality of your results in life is directly linked to the quality of your focus. Multitasking dilutes that focus and, you guessed it, your results.
The more you spread your attention thin, the thinner your results become.
So instead of multitasking, reflect on the quality of your outcomes and whether you’re truly giving your undivided attention to the task at hand.
It’s a long process but it’s a journey worth embarking upon.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“The quality of your results in life is dictated by the quality of your focus.”- Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino:
Yo, what’s up, guys? I want to talk about the number one productivity killer. Okay, maybe this. Okay, so this is a really dramatic title, actually. There’s probably a lot of things that are killing our productivity, including things like procrastination, self sabotage, distraction, but one that I see crop up a lot in my own personal life, excluding all those others. Let’s let’s talk about the boogeyman in the room, the one that most of us, or at least a lot of us believe we are good at, but in reality, we actually suck at. You’re talking about multitasking. Multitasking is really interesting because most people I’ve talked to generally think that they have the capacity to multitask and that they actually think that they’re good at it. And I used to fall into this circle as well, where I was just looking through some old Twitter threads from like back in 2014.
Anthony Vicino:
This is when I was writing my very first novel, Time heist. There’s a post in there about how I was multitasking. I had my writing screen up. I had Facebook open. I was tweeting at that moment all these things going on, and I was bragging about the fact that I was multitasking like a Swiss Army knife. And the truth is, there is no such thing as multitasking. You cannot do two things simultaneously. It’s impossible.
Anthony Vicino:
What you are actually doing is what do they call it, your task switching, micro task switching or something like that, where you’re just quickly pivoting between activities and you’re never giving your full attention to any one thing as a result. And there’s all this science and research around what’s called attentional residue, which means that when I pivot from one activity to the next, there is this little bit of a mental inertia where it takes my mind a little bit of time to let go of the thing that I was previously working on. And so I can fully get engaged in that new activity. Anyways, all that aside, a lot of people believe that multitasking is their strength, when in reality, the studies continually show over and over and over that it is a weakness that we are actually less productive when we are switching between activities than we are when we just stay focused. And I was thinking about this because I was looking at my budy Ben Meir, who has a fantastic Twitter, fantastic LinkedIn. He writes a lot about systems for life. And we got to talking on there. One of the things that came up in the conversation is that I firmly believe the quality of your results in life is dictated by the quality of your focus.
Anthony Vicino:
The more that you can intensely focus on whatever the thing is, whether that’s your health, your business, your relationship, whatever, the more you focus on that, the higher quality and quantity of focus you apply to that is going to impact the quality, the quantity of your results. So if you want better results, you’ve got to focus harder. Focus more on that thing that you want to improve. So if multitasking is by definition a dilution of focus because now we’re spreading it out across multiple domains simultaneously, therefore we can say unequivocally that multitasking leads to a dilution of result. So let me say this all from the beginning. The quality of your results is dictated by the quality of your focus. Multitasking is by definition a dilution of focus and therefore a dilution of results. So let that sink in.
Anthony Vicino:
Let that really sink in and ask yourself, am I achieving the things that I want to in my life right now? If the answer is no, if the quality of your result is less than you would like it to be, I encourage you to rewind to the first principle of this situation and ask yourself, am I diluting my focus when it comes time to work on that book or work on that side, hustle the business or make those calls or whatever? The thing is when it comes time to do the work, am I unintentionally diluting my focus by spreading it across too many tasks simultaneously? And in many, many cases, the answer for myself has been yes. Unequivocally, the reason I’m not getting the results that I want is because I’m not focusing with enough quantity and quality on the activity that would lead to the result. I’m spread too thin. I’m trying to podcast while also texting, while also trying to write. I’m trying to do too many things simultaneously and instead just be where you are. Just be where your feet are in the moment. And this is incredibly difficult. I’m not saying I have this figured out.
Anthony Vicino:
I’m just saying that this is the way forward and that we just have to figure out how to make this journey together because it is a journey, it’s not a destination that you’re going to arrive at and then suddenly you have solved this problem. I slip slide into multitasking constantly when I’m sitting at the red light in my car and I reach over from my phone while listening to a podcast and then I’m also scrolling Twitter or I’m texting somebody. I have five different things going on simultaneously. This is the default state and it’s so easy to slip into it because we are not good at being bored anymore and truly applying what I will say, a severe amount of focus or an extreme amount of focus on a singular task. It’s kind of boring. Like your mind starts to wander. It’s very, very hard to stay present and locked in on just a singular thing. Your mind is prone to wander, especially in this world of digital media that makes it very, very easy to escape.
Anthony Vicino:
There’s so much instant gratification, so much easy dopamine to be had from a quick scroll and so much stimulation that it’s very hard to stay with one activity because that one activity typically does not provide enough stimulation in that moment to, we’ll say, override all of the noise happening in your mind. When you’re locked in on one task and only one task, what you’ll start to notice is that you start to have more room for the monkey mind to start dancing and start running rampant, and you start becoming aware of it, whereas you would typically self medicate by picking up multiple things simultaneously and then trying to shut out that monkey mind. The reality is to develop concentration and this type of aggressive focus that would allow you to sit with a singular activity for a long period of time. You have to get comfortable with the space that will inevitably arise from not having as much to do. Okay. It’s really counterintuitive that you’re actually bored the more that you focus on a singular task. So there’s ways that we can manipulate the situation in our favor, right? We can do two things to increase our focus. We can either just brute force it and think of it as a muscle and just develop the focus muscle, the concentration muscle, so that we can do more of it in higher quality and for longer periods of time, or we can organize our environment in a way that reduces the appearance of distractions.
Anthony Vicino:
Both are very viable, and we should pursue both of those. But typically that second one, the environment design, creating and cultivating an environment where we are not easily distracted or led into the deep morass of multitasking, that’s usually going to be the easiest place to start. Now, if I look around my desk right now, this is actually a hot mess. I’m glad you guys can’t see all of it. I have a hot mess of stuff happening on my desk right now, and I can just feel it. Like the cluttered desk equals the cluttered mind. And that makes it very, very tempting to suddenly want to multitask. Like, I want to get rid of this thing over here.
Anthony Vicino:
I want to throw that away. I want to write this down. I want to clean that up over there. And also I still need to do this podcast, right? So start with the environment design while also building into your day a daily focus ritual or a routine that helps you get into that mental, the mental weight room where you can go in there. You can start developing that focus muscle over time. So let’s leave it there. I hope you guys got a little bit of value out of this and this wasn’t just the ramblings of a crazy man. It could have been that too.
Anthony Vicino:
Let me know. Leave a comment, leave a review. Come find me on Instagram or Twitter. I love chatting with you guys. I love that you’re getting some value out of this. So let me know about that if you are. If you’re not, let me know. What you guys what can I do better, let me know.
Anthony Vicino:
How can I improve? That’s going to do it for me, guys. I’ll see you back around these parts tomorrow. But until then, stay hyper focused.
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