The Myth of Multitasking

“It’s not your unavailability that makes people nervous and causes them to interrupt you. It’s the uncertainty of when they’ll get a chance to talk to you that makes them worry. Because your employees don’t have any idea when you are open for business, so to speak, they are beating down your door at all hours of the day.

She’ll hold off on most of her questions until that meeting. Is that right?”
“You’ve got it, ” Phil said approvingly. “Of course, if there is an actual emergency, then she’ll let you know before then. However, the majority of what happens in business isn’t really an emergency. Normal occurrences have grown to feel like emergencies to your employees because they fear that they’ll never be able to talk to you about them.

The point is this: when someone tells me that they are good at multitasking, I know they’re inefficient. Saying that you’ re a good multitasker is the same as saying that you’ re good at using a less effective method to get things done.

Studies have shown that on average, each person loses about 28 percent of the workday due to interruptions and inefficiencies. Multitasking—or switchtasking—is probably the biggest culprit.

Never commit to something without your calendar in hand.

No matter how busy you are, you must take time to make the other person feel important .