How many times your man is deeply immersed in some activity and gets annoyed if he is distracted, and at this time you have to juggle with the child's lessons, a kitchen mixer and a telephone. Your partner just shrugs at your reproaches - you’re a woman. But in reality, women's multitasking is a myth.
The opinion that women often multitask, while men, on the contrary, are able to do only one thing at a time is nothing more than a stereotype. Women are just less fortunate : raising children in parallel with housekeeping for many years was automatically considered exactly their duty, and those who also had to work, willy-nilly, reached unprecedented heights in multitasking.
However, men also had to catch up: a few years ago, multitasking became an obligatory item in the resume of everyone who claimed at least some career heights.
Now the situation is changing again - slowdown in fashion , deliberate rejection of excess knowledge and living in the moment. Therefore, multitasking is already spoken of as something harmful and destructive - which, by the way, is the pure truth.
How to know when to stop
The multi-armed Indian deity Shiva may have been easier than ever to deal with many things at once, but for an ordinary person, this tactic does not work for long. It has been proven that only two percent of people are able to actually do several things at the same time and at the same time without losing quality (and, by the way, there are representatives of both sexes among them). For the rest, the "multiplayer" mode for a long time is a sure way to burnout and accumulating debris.
Most likely, it's time for you to tie up with life in the mode of achievement and stop grabbing a hundred things at the same time, if you:
- you have trouble concentrating and more and more often find yourself stuck on stupid videos on social networks, although you seem to be going to do something useful;
- you fill your diary with chores, but at the end of the day you transfer half of them to tomorrow;
- already made several mistakes that could have consequences - for example, she miraculously avoided an accident, while driving a car and texting with a friend on social networks;
- you can easily forget even important things, and the information is erased from memory in large blocks - as if the brain is trying to unload itself.
Single task mode - does it happen?
The ability and the ability to focus on just one lesson with your usual workload and fast pace of life looks almost a luxury. Mono-tasking is not an innate quality (so it won't work to hide behind them in everyday life), and the subtle art of finding satisfaction in simple things. People who practice mono-tasking really do less, but they:
- can willingly perform the most boring and unpleasant tasks. Putting things in order in the cutlery drawer, scrubbing the bathtub and tiles, collecting lego for the child - for a mono-tasking partner there is nothing that he could not do with a slight smile;
- find meaning in anything. Rather, the meaning for them is not as a result, but in the process, therefore, there is absolutely no need for them to chase after more time or to do everything better than everyone else;
- generally calmer and less irritable - they have already chosen their life strategy and are not trying to meet anyone's expectations.
Unload your head
Scientists have found that our brains are capable of processing a maximum of four thoughts at a time. Everything from above inevitably goes into the "gray zone" and eventually gets lost in it. That's why get yourself a practice of "unloading" your urgent to-do list and reasons for reflection on paper, and return to the list only after the previous point is somehow completed.
experts Time management also advise dividing what is written into three groups - fast, important, and unnecessary.
- Fast is something that can be done in no more than five minutes (for example, turn on the washing machine or call someone), and this is what you do first.
- Important is something that cannot be done, but you are not the only one who can cope with this, so you try to delegate the things from this list as much as possible. This, for example, includes shopping trips - you can make a shopping list and order delivery from any supermarket, saving you a lot of time and effort.
- The third point is those things that you can not do at all, and the world will not collapse. For example, it is not at all necessary to try to combine watching a TV series and ironing - it is better to focus only on sliding the iron on the fabric, relieve your brain and catch Zen.
What if you are different
The ability to single-task or multitask is partly due to a person's temperament , and here the main problem lies in wait - what if you still like to run in all directions at the same time, and your partner cannot keep up with you? In this case it's useless to try to whip up a man crying "faster, higher, stronger" - it will only add stress to both of you. You need to try to reduce the number of tasks performed at the same time, so as not to drag everything on yourself, and he should try not to spend too much time on each of his "mono-models".
To get out of multitasking and slow down to partner level, you can try:
- Sort cases. When you multitask, you do less and get tired more, also because it is very difficult for your brain to quickly switch between different types of tasks. For example, if you give up a creative presentation halfway through and sit down to jot down boring numbers in your family budget, your brain has to work at high revs. Therefore, try to focus, if not on one lesson, then at least two or three as similar as possible (this works best with cooking).
- Ground on bodily sensations. A bubble bath, but without a book, a cup of coffee or dinner without a phone in your hands, a walk without headphones in your ears to hear only the rustle of leaves under your feet - at first it will seem to you that something is missing, but the anxiety will quickly go away as soon as you focus on your senses.
- Disable social media notifications. The smartphone makes you reluctant to multitask and constantly requires attention, so you have to take radical action. During the day, set aside 30-40 minutes for yourself to read all messages and flip through the feed (for example, this can be done on the way to work and back, if you use public transport), and the rest of the time, put all applications on mute.
- Do not keep all thoughts and deeds in your head. Trying not to forget anything loads your brain in the background, so use notebooks, paper and electronic diaries, stickers and applications in any volume to transfer information into them and free up memory space with ease.
- Allow yourself to rest. Don't blame yourself if you feel that right now you need ten minutes in silence by the window with a cup of tea . Even a complex technique requires a reboot, and if, looking at the clouds and counting the red cars in the parking lot under the window, you feel better and gain strength - continue to do this as much as necessary.
And for a little "Overclock" a mono-tasking partner , you may need:
- Timer , so as not to get too carried away with simple things such as putting things in order in the garage or putting things in the closet according to colors and seasons.
- The to-do list for the day is, of course, a reasonable number of items and assumes that things are done sequentially rather than in parallel.
- A pre-agreed schedule of your free time that you spend together - at any level of employment, you need to find time for this.
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