heartharmony.com.au

For years I was an advocate of multi-tasking.  I believed that I had the capacity to do multiple things at once – and all well. After all … I am a woman and mother and I seem to remember reading that in my job description.

And then the wheels started coming off the wagon. The more I did, the less I accomplished. But then I discovered an underground movement – one where people are standing up and declaring “Multi-tasking sucks”, and I was hooked!

In recent times I have a new motto “one task at a time until completion”. I was tempted to needlepoint it and put it into my kids bedrooms but given their walls are covered in Twilight posters I figured it may clash.

In my work we have new processes. If we are focused on writing for a client – then that is what we do until the spark of creativity is burnt out. This means yes, the phone does go through the answering machine when we are writing. We figured you wouldn’t want a doctor doing surgery to pause and answer their phone in the middle of it – well why did we stop when we were writing for our clients?

And the results are significantly better for our clients – it means the flow is not lost and the language is clearer.  We are not constantly having to regroup and gather back our train of thought.

It also means that emails get answered every day or so in a big blip and it means we return calls in a single window of time.

Yes, our way of working does also mean we will lose some clients who are impatient and need answers now. But those we do keep appreciate the quality and craftsmanship. They appreciate that we focus 100% on their business and their work – allowing no other distractions until we are done.

One of my colleagues is one of the champions of this underground anti multi-tasking movement. Donna-Marie Coggins teaches businesses the mysteries of setting up and running successful online businesses, and she has recently released a great free e-book titled

“Multi-tasking Sucks: The High Achievers Guide to Squeezing the Most Out of Every Second”

Look this is a great book (and you can’t argue with the price). It is full of tips to automate business processes, save time on the computer, increase your efficiency and build a successful online business. This is not one of those light on content high on hype ebooks – it is just pure useful stuff you can use straight away. I fully recommend it! Go to her site, enter your details and grab your copy of her book. It is worth it!

So – what have you done in your war against multi-tasking?

Ingrid Cliff

We put your business into words

Heart Harmony – Freelance Writer