Multitasking or doing multiple tasks at the same time is a valuable skill not only as a professional but also in your personal life without even noticing it. Over time when job searching, it is very common to see in the requirements that the candidate needs to be comfortable juggling with many projects which sounds really stressfull and draining. In my experience working as an writing advisor for different clients and fields, teaching English and being a full-time Venezuelan, multitasking is not an option: is a lifestyle.
And reality is that most of the people don't know how to be multitaskers stress-free and at the end of the day are tired, hopeless and dreading starting all over again the next day. But believe it or not, it is way easier than you think. You just need to apply little tips that will get you a long way towards your goals.
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List your activities
Sounds pretty obvious, but hold on and listen to me first! When say list your activities, one might think that are the ones refering to work but no, I mean everything that you have to do in the day (excepting, of course, going to the bathroom).
Think about it like this, how much time do you spend cooking and eating your breakfast? Washing your hair? Walking your dog? Drinking your coffee?
Those are things that when tend to overlook when thinking about our schedule for the day, but trust me, they add up and at the end of your day you just ask yourself why I couldn't do what I have to? Now you are aware of the issue! It is stressful to do your projects on a rush since you didn't include your daily needs in your schedule.
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Now what? Do your listing of activities the previous day or dedicate some time on the weekends to do it. It'll help you enormously to have more track and a realistic notion of what you actually have to do.
My recomendation: If you prefer having everything on your phone, use your notes app or my personal favorite: Notion App (I might have to write something about this app, because it's been so helpful I could be selfish not sharing it!)
Prioritize
Now that you have your pretty list with everything in it. It's time to prioritize: what is more urgent to do? what can be done at last? Remember, if you are working in different project at the sametime, you need to meet diverse deadlines and let's face it. Some activities can be done quick and easily while others take more time in the thought process, preparing what you need for it or executing them so you must take that into account!
If you find yourself procrastinating one specific task, do it first! There is a great, great probability that it will take you more time to finish it since you are unmotivated to do it so the early you start, the less probable it that you'll end up rushing and suffering in your deadline.
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My recomendation: Color code will save your life. You can either code it by projects (i.e blue for Academic papers, purple for content writing, etc), difficulty, time consume or deadline.
Set realistic deadlines
Another common issue we tend to have when multitasking is realizing that the deadline you set has come and you haven't finished half of the task. That always lead to rush, stress, desperation, self-doubt, I mean, we've all been there and done that, right?
Now you must be asking yourself "but how do I set realistic deadlines?" When thinking about your tasks you have to take into account what that really involves. As I mentioned in the previous points, every task has hidden steps that you need to follow in order to finish it succesfully, some take less time, some more that regardless that adds time that you might not be taking into account that ends affecting the delivering of your project.
I'll set you the context of a student writing an important paper for the university: They calculate that will spend a week in the process of writing the paper since it is a difficult, easy, they could think as they will have a lot of time between writing, revising and submitting the paper. But in the actual process of producing the text they underestimate or just didn't take into account how much time researching and organizing ideas would take and now they are almost late for the sumitting and won't have time to even revise it! All because when setting the plannification of when it should be done, the pre-writing process was overlooked (believe me, that happens more times that you would think).
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My recomendation: When listing and prioritizing your projects, take into account the actual time it will take for you to finish it. That's how you will have a realistic overview of your schedule, otherwise, you will be setting yourself for failure and stress.
Take breaks
So far we have covered, about doing things but what about not doing things? You can look it up if you don't believe me, but... It is known that taking scheduled breaks in your working time can, in fact, increase your productivity!
Think about it. When you spend a lot of time doing an activity specially if it is in front of your computer, you will encounter yourself getting easily distracted, wanting to check your phone or even trying to clean your office because you are tired of the activity and that is completely normal.
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The good news here is that you can avoid very simply! Set your timer for work-time and break-time. For me, a cicle of 40 minutes of focused work and then 15 minutes of break helps a lot. And I know it sounds like too little work and too much breaks, but trust me, when your mind is rested you can do extensively more in those 40 minutes than in 2 hours of ininterrumpted work.
But, remember, don't exceed your break time because it would have the contrary effect. That is why the timer is very important in this tip. Once you get used to this type of work, you'll thank me when looking at the results.
Enjoy the process
After all this, one last thing that you should to keep in mind when multitasking is that why you enjoy your projects and your goals. Cheesy, right? But having something in the horizon always helps remembering why things are worth it.
What are your goals for your multiple plojects? How proud are you going to feel after finishing them? We only live one, and it is not only about the result but also about the journey getting there and what it implies.
Now, what do you think about this tips? What others do you know?
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