“You can do two things at once, but you can’t focus effectively on two things at once.”

If you are into personal development and self-improvement you have for sure already heard how multitasking is harming productivity.

While the term multitasking itself sounds great — like achieving more with less, it is actually not more than a myth.

In fact, there is no such multitasking — what we consider as doing several tasks simultaneously is actually just our brains switching quickly from one thing to the other.

This constant switching leads to a neurochemical high and feels like doing a great job and being productive but in fact, we get less done.

Switching tasks Simply gives us a wrong sense of productivity and in the end, our performance decreases instead of increasing.

“When we think we’re multitasking we’re actually multiswitching. That is what the brain is very good at doing — quickly diverting its attention from one place to the next. We think we’re being productive. We are, indeed, being busy. But in reality we’re simply giving ourselves extra work.” ― Michael Harris

In fact, the constant change of tasks rather leads to a loss of creativity and exhaustion — which might feel like productivity but actually is the opposite,

Unitasking, however, considered as focusing and working on one task at a time can lead to a higher performance overall.

“The scarcity of time is the reason we have to concentrate on one thing at a time.” ― Matt Perman

I am a huge victim of Multitasking.

I often tend to switch between tasks and lose a lot of time while thinking that I am productive.

However, I guess that being aware of your mistakes is the first step for improving.

So, I am constantly trying out different things and here are my Top 2 recommendations for more focus and productivity:

🍅 Pomodoro Technique

There are certain terms, principles etc. that I hear over and over again, that I could perfectly explain but never tried by myself.

The Pomodoro technique was one of those until about half a year ago.

I simply never tried it out because I didn’t believe that it would make a huge difference in my performance.

But it does!

I love the Pomodoro technique — putting down everything else and being fully committed to a task for a specific amount of time really helps me to achieve more.

Being the Lord of Time

⏰ While the Pomodoro technique tells you to work for 25 minutes and have a 5-minute break, it might make sense to adjust those time spans for yourself.

There might be tasks that need more than 25 minutes of focus — simply find out what works out best for yourself!

🌳 Forest App

If you need a little extra motivation to focus or if you like gamification then the Forest app is perfect for you.

You simply start the app, decide on how long you want to focus and once you press ‘’start’’ a virtual tree starts growing.

Once you open any other application on your phone and get distracted your tree dies. If you manage to stay focused until the end of the timer, you have a fully grown tree.

You can even categorize your focused times and have a great overview on where your time flows.

🔃 Leveraging Time

Multitasking might be harming but what might be very useful ist to leverage time.

Leveraging time simply means to make use of the time we spend doing something unproductive anyways.

For example, listening to an audiobook while running or commuting. This way of multitasking, of course, makes sense!

How to spend an excessive amount of time on your development

Bonus

Whenever you find yourself multitasking and not actually being focused and productive ask yourself why you are doing so.

Is it the work that you are doing? Is it your mood?

Finding out why you are multitasking might help you to fight the problem.

What is your #1 tip to focus and achieve more?

Why unitasking is the next big thing and how to implement it was originally published in The Ascent on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.