Speaker 1: 0:01

One, two, three, four. Welcome to the Systemized Business. Here we dive into strategic productivity to help you overcome entrepreneurial overwhelm. I am BK and I do not believe that you have to be a slave to your business. You can streamline both your business and your life with simple systems. So, whether you're a female entrepreneur navigating the fast-paced world of business, this podcast is your go-to resource for simplifying processes, optimizing efficiency and achieving more with less stress. Let's get started on building the systems that will take you from overwhelmed to in control.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Welcome back to the podcast and welcome back to the series that we have going on on time management and getting the most out of your days, whether at work, in your business, in your life. Today's episode is the second installment in the series, and today we're talking about focused time management. You might feel like you're getting a lot done when you have three, four things you're working on at the same time, but our minds can tell us that the more tasks we are doing at once, the more we are getting done. Except this is not true. In fact, the more we split our attention across multiple tasks, the less productive we really are. But if we focus on just one thing at a time, the higher the quality of the work that we produce. Having one thing that you are working on will free you up for more time, because you will do it right the first time and then you can move on to the next thing.

Speaker 1: 1:57

But switching from one thing to another or trying to focus on many things at once are two very ineffective ways to manage our time. If you are like me and at the beginning of your day you pull out your long to-do list, you pick the first thing to do, you work on it for a few minutes, you know. You look up, you see something else on the list and think, oh yeah, I'll do that too. So you jump from the first thing you were doing to the next thing that you're suddenly doing, and then, after 15 minutes, you then scrub the two and switch to another thing. And it keeps going on and on. At the end of an hour guess what you may find that you have attempted to do many things but you haven't really accomplished anything. There are three things that may come up during your day. Each of these can negatively affect your time management in different ways, and these three things you might have guessed it are multitasking, task switching and context switching. So let's start with multitasking. This is when you do many tasks at once that are all related to the same end result.

Speaker 1: 3:18

A lot of us try to multitask in an effort to be efficient, right, in fact, it's something that is often celebrated and we feel proud when we are complimented on how well we can multitask. But the problem is, multitasking is not as effective as we might think. For example, have you ever tried walking and typing an email on your phone? Well, you can do both these things really well, and I'm sure you know how to walk. I'm sure you know how to type an email. They become more difficult when you're trying to do these things at the same time. Eventually, you are either going to have to stop walking or stop typing, okay, in order to concentrate on the one thing. This is because your attention is split between two tasks instead of just the one, and, in spite of what we might believe about our abilities, our expertise, we can't effectively split our attention and have good results.

Speaker 1: 4:27

How about task switching? Task switching is similar to multitasking in that it involves doing many things at once, but the difference here is that task switching is even less productive than multitasking, because when you're switching between tasks, it's when you're trying to focus on many things at once that are not even related to one specific goal. For example, you may have a conversation on the phone about an upcoming event while you're trying to write an outline for a new project. These tasks have nothing to do with each other and it's very likely that what is going to happen is that you're going to miss important details about what is being said on the phone because you're not listening, or you're going to make mistakes on your project outline because you are not concentrating on the specifics that you need to be to do a good job. So you're trying to give your attention to one thing while doing something else, and it can be difficult to get into a mental state of focus because task switching makes it even more difficult. That focused feeling of losing track of time and being in the zone, being invigorated and productive. This completely goes out the window when you're trying to engage in two different things at the same time. Switching from task to task means that none of the work that you're producing will be as high in quality as work done if you were giving your 100% focus on the one thing and just to get even more granular about task switching.

Speaker 1: 6:25

There are two types interrupted task switching and rapid task switching. So the first one, interrupted task switching, is what tends to happen most of the time when we have email, social media and text messages notifications on while we are trying to work. If you have like noise alerts or pop-ups on your computer, you're likely to be easily distracted and be pulled out of your moment of focus. With that simple notification and all that flow state, that total focus can just be lost. So an example of this is let's take social media, the example that we had. Once you notice, for example, a new social media notification. So the moment you click on it while you were doing other work, you have officially task switched and you might be working on a project in one window while checking social media on the next. So that notification has taken you out of your flow state and it is going to take time for you to get back into that focused work. For one thing, you're going to need to close that social media window so that you can get back to focused work on your project.

Speaker 1: 7:59

The second type of task switching is rapid task switching is when you're switching from task to task in rapid succession. So think about, let's say, taking notes on your notebook with your computer open to another task is one way, is one example of task switching. You may move from typing an email to writing an outline for your project or working on answering emails, for example emails, for example. So this is essentially just going from task to task in quick succession, which really diminishes your awareness on what work it is that you have. What work are you supposed to be doing and what work is your energy supposed to be directed towards? Is your energy supposed to be directed towards? It limits your ability to think clearly and with care, because you are not being intentional or proactive with your work, but you're rather reacting to whatever it is that's happening. If somebody puts something in front of your desk, you immediately stop what you're doing and you focus on this thing. When a notification pops up, you stop what you have been doing and you focus on that thing. So this just makes us lose our productive hours on the day, because we have completely been essentially bulldozed by the tasks that we have, and you'll find that most of those tasks have little value on our goals to begin with.

Speaker 1: 9:37

So the third thing that can derail our productivity or our productive day is context switching or productive day is context switching? Context switching is when we go from one task to an entirely different task. This is different because Similar, but different from multitasking and task switching, in that it does not involve doing many tasks at once. Instead, it means moving from one project to another without completing either project. The biggest disadvantage to context switching is that it wastes so much precious work time. It wastes so much precious work time because once you've come out of focus, once you are out of that flow state, it is estimated that it takes about 25 minutes to get back into another state of focus. So if you are switching contexts, let's say, three times in your day, you've lost over an hour of time that could have been spent well and productively.

Speaker 1: 10:46

So if you do work eight hours in your workday, the best thing to do is to choose your most important projects and work on that. What we want to do is use our time most effectively by completing the first thing before moving on to anything else. Because if we move from project A before it is done and we go on to start project B and then something happens we start project C, what's going to end up happening is that, at the end of the day, we're going to have two unfinished or three unfinished projects by the end of the day instead of one whole finished task, and this happens. And if this happens throughout the week that's a bunch of unfinished work here and there that we need to then, you know, spend time tying up loose ends. So what do we do? How do we minimize and eventually stop these habits?

Speaker 1: 11:50

The key thing is to start small and to start gradually, because sometimes you don't even realize that we do these things right. If you've ever tried to change any sort of behavior, you know that it's not easy, and the best approach, now that you are aware of what needs to change, is just to make small changes and then have those compound and make a difference over a long run. So you can start with a few simple things. Firstly, implement the when and where of your work environment right. We go back to what we talked about before when are you in your ideal work mode and what is your ideal work setting? And you're more likely to have this trigger that okay, it's time for work, and get you into a focus state faster than before, and make it a rule once you start a task, to finish it before you begin the next one. This will increase your work endurance and it will help you get more done. You won't waste precious time recovering from interrupted states of focus.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Turn off social media or email notifications and put your devices on do not disturb mode for a certain period of time so that you can have focused time, uninterrupted time, that you can get into that deep work. And if you're working online, stay away from those distracting websites you might have a habit of. I know that I like listening or playing music on YouTube when I'm working. Sometimes this could be tricky because I can open up YouTube and then something will catch my eye Next thing I'm down a rabbit hole. So minimize these.

Speaker 1: 13:57

Try to find different strategies of still creating the environment that helps you work with focus, but avoid using applications and protect your work time from distracting websites and notifications and things like that. And if you like, working in coffee shops or outside the office or your home office, take advantage of sound or eliminate sound altogether. You know, use the noise cancelling feature on your headphones or earphones, because this can be game changing phones or earphones, because this can be game changing Just shutting out the world and getting into your zone of focus can be a real game changer when you're trying to really focus. So these are just a number of small ways that you can set yourself up for success as you work, you know, towards being more intentionally productive this year. All right, that's it for this episode. Follow or subscribe to the show so that you get notified when a new episode is live. All right, I'm looking forward to you joining me again next week, same time, same place. Until then, have a wonderful week ahead and I'll speak to you real soon. Bye for now, thank you.