I have seen and read a lot lately about all those children that can’t focus on one thing or another.  Most have been “diagnosed” with ADD or ADHD (more commonly known as Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).  It seems to be a growing thing amongst younger people now-a-days.  I never understood it.  I never had that problem, well, not until recently.

I noticed over the last year or so that less and less was getting accomplished in my daily life and I just couldn’t figure out why.  As I compared this year to last year, I found that I was definitely more productive last year.

So what changed?  Was it the economy?  The new discovery of Web 2.0?  Of Social Media? Actually, no, well, maybe (I’ll come back to this).  The problem:  multitasking. 

The Myth of Multitasking

Something I always thought was a good thing.  A few months ago, I sat in on a webinar that talked about Multitasking: The Myth. I must agree that my pride in being able to multitask (or used to be able to) was stripped away.  Almost everything said in the webinar fit me to a “T”. Multitasking is not necessarily a good thing.

The webinar pointed out the studies where 2 people were watched, er uh, agreed to be studied during their business life.  The person that scheduled their daily tasks, usually, but not always (you know that one size does not fit all, right?) completed more of their tasks on time than a person who tried to do several tasks simultaneously or overlapping. 

Really?  Here I thought I could handle all the different aspects of several tasks and get more accomplished.  I mean, isn’t that one of the great benefits that employers are looking for?  “Must have the ability to multitask.”

When I looked back, I was in the “usual” category.  The mental energy of dividing my attention in different areas actually slowed me down.  The mental energy of stopping one task to work on another also made me less effective.  I wasn’t getting anything accomplished because I was losing my ability to priortize my tasks and my mind would bounce from one task to another making me lose focus on all the tasks.

I can’t multitask (and I’m proud of it — Now anyway).  After the webinar, I found myself finishing more projects with better quality.  Why?  Because I stopped stopping one task in order to take a small step on another project.  When I tried to multitask  I found that I was quickly behind in both projects because I spent more mental energy moving between them both.

 End of story right?  Nope. 

Enter problem number 2.

The ADHD in my case came back, yet I could not figure out why.  I mean I had stopped multi-tasking (for the most part), but the distractions were still there.  I felt overwhelmed before the day even started.

My business was picking up, and jobs were being completed, but I wanted to grow more.  I wanted more business.  So in late spring, early summer I discovered another outlet to advertise and gain more business.  I found twitter and by extension a couple months later, Facebook.

Did these avenues grow my business?  A little, but not enough.  Was I doing it wrong? 

One day it hit me.  I was reading some tweets and following some links to articles about web design while making coffee, waiting for the conference call to start (that hold music has to go), and waiting for my email to finish downloading (because we all know during a conference call you can catch up on your email).  I was multitasking again, but now I was cheating my one task with social media.

Trying to cram my daily life and novel writing around FB and Twitter was making me distracted again.  I would be thinking about the way to implement the ideas of a tweeted article into my business while working on a completely separate task.  Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with social media. It gives me opportunities to grow my business and reconnect with far flung family and friends.

Multitasking Good?

I read Portrait of a Multitasking Mind: What Happens when you try to do three things at once?

As I sat and forced myself to finish the article AND understand what it was talking about, I realized that I hadn’t really stopped multitasking.  I just replace one distraction with another.  In THIS case, I’m still trying to do 3 things at once:  email, completing this blog, and checking out my social media, which has a good article about SEO I need to go check out…

See there I go again.  Social media is great, it has given me soooo many good ideas that I don’t even know where to begin.  And therein lies the problem.  Luckily for me I have (1) identified the problem, (2) have Outlook in which to schedule my day, and (3) have not lost my mind so that I can focus on one thing at a time.

I’m ok with missing an article about the best way to do SEO or the latest greatest WP Plugin.  The piles and notes on my desk are arranged in the order that my day is scheduled in Outlook.  Now all I have to do is follow it, and my new websites, blogs, and other jobs will fall right in order and be done on time — or ahead of time.

Now where did I leave me coffee?

PS:  Do you have ADD or is Multitasking a distraction?  Drop us a line let us know what you think.