The Day I Traded Multitasking for Relentless Focus, Productivity, and Quality
Just doing one thing.
It’s challenging at times, right?
We have so much to do and limited time, so why not do two, three, or four things at once and accomplish more in the same amount of time?
In the kitchen, I might chop onions while waiting for the water to boil — which is more like task-switching than multitasking. Then there’s walking phone calls — a literal breath of fresh air. We can walk and talk at the same time. Doing more than one thing at a time has its place.
At any given time, we entrepreneurs wear multiple hats and have numerous projects and multiple ideas on the go.
Doing too much can spread our creative energy and ability to focus too thin.
I learned that to go faster, I need to slow down.
When you go slow, you can go faster. Because when you slow the fuck down, you make fewer mistakes and do a more thorough job.
I know the type-A brain part of me is screaming on the inside — I need to do all the things and do them at once. That's how I get all my shit done. It's all part of the hustle and flow, right? I can't be all the things to all the people unless I'm wearing all the hats.
Fuck all the hats and all this multitasking fuckery.
Choose just ONE project.
Even if your project is perfectly small — like you need to update a button on your website. Do that one thing.
Don’t try to do it while you're in the middle of a phone call — multitasking is a surefire way to screw shit up.
Early in my management consulting career, I made a few big mistakes on a high-profile project. I hated making mistakes — like hate, hate, hate it. It felt more embarrassing than anything.
The Feedback That Could Have Turned Me Into a Perfectionist
My boss called me into his office.
As I nervously sat down, he said he wanted to talk to me about this new habit I had.
My habit… screwing up.
These were my words, not his.
Ouch.
He said, “You're too good at too many other things to suck at quality.”
That moment rang through my ears for the next ten years of my career. I never want to be the person that's known for less than excellent work.
The cause — I was insanely productive, but I was multitasking to get all that shit done. I wasn't focused on any one thing long enough to do it exceptionally well.
We’re going to make mistakes from time to time still — human being thing, remember? It’s how we navigate the missteps that matters.
That manager was actually one of my favorites. That conversation and others, made a significant impact on me.
Just a year later, in the same company, my colleagues started referring to me as the “Quality Queen.” I became the final set of eyes to make sure everyone dotted the appropriate Is and crossed the right Ts.
I was put in charge of implementing quality control processes on our team (and future teams). When junior colleagues shared work with me, I asked, “Did you review this already?” and “Did this already go through a peer review?”
I created PowerPoint presentations on the importance of quality — how it builds (or shatters) your personal brand and people’s trust in you and your work — and how to use it as a tool to stand out.
What if you have a gazillion projects on the go and need to focus on just one?
How do you even begin to choose only one project? Say you’re remodeling your home — you tear down the walls in your kitchen, start wallpapering the bathroom, and then dig up the flower beds to start a garden. Keep this up, and you’ll never finish your remodel (my nightmare) — and everything will take longer than it needs to.
Pick one project at a time, and focus on it until you finish. When it’s done — revel in your badassery then move on to your next project.
Taking this deliberate action might initially feel tedious and frustrating — especially if you're used to traveling 1,000 mph in 10 different directions (while refreshing your mascara in the rearview mirror).
Get off the treadmill of shoulds and start to be productive for real.
What do you do with all those other exciting projects?
Put them in a project parking lot.
This idea is a game changer for my clients and writing community members.
Keep a list of all the projects you want to start in a file on your computer, in a notebook, or on a big blackboard or whiteboard in your home. When one project is done, move on to the next.
Today, I keep mine at the bottom of my 12-week plan. I have several parking lot projects to get to someday. Get the always up-to-date 12-week planning template and workshop here.
If choosing one thing makes you worried that you’ll resent it, get immensely bored with the project, and want to move on to something new or more fun and exciting, that could be an indicator of a bigger problem.
That constant craving for something new or some kind of change could be what’s leaving you feeling miserable.
We feel happier when we can accomplish things not only by ourselves but also by the way we set out to do the hard work.
The hard work is the heavy editing of the book you're writing — the final glaze on your handspun pottery. It's the stuff that makes you antsy and want to crawl out of your skin.
Unless, of course, you work in an industry where you can outsource all those things you don’t want to do and keep doing what you do best — that's your role.
I was that kid who would get sick of coloring pages when I was halfway done and just switch to a new page and start fresh. I loved dabbling in the high-levelness of what felt good to create in the moment. I wanted nothing to do with coloring a big, boring background the same color.
If you’ve met anyone who has self-identified with the term “serial entrepreneur,” look a little closer — it might not be because they’re so successful at all their businesses that they just keep opening up new ones. They may be easily bored, or something gets too hard or too easy, and they jump ship to the next shiny thing.
Being a serial entrepreneur is fantastic. If there’s a good reason for moving on from their last project — a sale, a failure, a pivot. Then they probably don’t suffer from shiny object syndrome.
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