Do you identify as a multitasker or supertasker?

Given our busy professional and personal lives, it’s not surprising how quickly we accept concepts popularised through mainstream media and social networks. Multitasking is one example… supertasking is another, even stronger one.

Don’t let the hype make you feel ignorant, inefficient or worse, lazy!

You’re only human and people have a limited capacity to concentrate indefinitely or intensely focus for prolonged periods of time. We are not robots! And we cannot be programmed to standardise our behaviour to be in sync with “the group”.

Over the past three years we have realised that we all have limits.

When the pandemic hit, we were expected to do more, push harder and go above and beyond. But this had consequences, and there’s no doubt we have been affected. This “gung-ho” approach has had an adverse effect on our mental health, our professional capacity and the natural intuition “to chart our own course”.

There are plenty of studies that show concepts like multitasking or super tasking are actually bad for your mental health and hamper progress towards the goal of being more efficient.

Research suggests that people who label themselves multitaskers are in fact less efficient in the long run because their ability to focus on each task is ultimately compromised.

Modern society has conditioned us to think that a split-attention existence is normal. While some people thrive under these conditions, most people feel overwhelmed – especially when it comes to workplace routines.

What gives people a sense of accomplishment?

If employers and employers want to produce quality and do so efficiently (where results, value and progress are measured) they must advocate productivity software solutions which are designed to promote just that.

Make a list and then provide the user with the satisfaction of “ticking off” a task from their list. Then people can feel a sense of accomplishment for the work they have done over a specific time period.

This should be the new way of thinking around productivity and efficiency.

This mind-shift will certainly go a long way towards protecting people’s mental health while promoting productivity, quality and accuracy.

More importantly, now we have the ability to ensure we work hard, but smarter overall.