“The man who chases two rabbits, catches neither”, Confucius
Multitasking is all the rage these days. People list multitasking as a valuable skill. Unfortunately, multitaskers don’t achieve great things. I cannot think of any successful person who credits his multitasking abilities for his success. Gandhi was focused independence for India. Nelson Mandela was focused on racial equality in South Africa. Do you know of any famous achiever who was focused on 15 different things?
Human brain is not designed to focus on multiple things at the same time. We cannot deliver a speech, write a novel, and program code simultaneously. We can only focus on one thing at a time. Yes, we can think about countless things that all tie into the same task but not on two different tasks. Even if we manage to multitask, it is only for small habitual tasks and we often complete them with multiple errors.
To be efficient, I create a list of task for myself every night. Then I prioritize them. Every morning, I meditate for a few minutes and tell my mind to focus on these priorities. By day’s end, I usually get those major tasks completed along with several small tasks that happened to interrupt me. Before, I used to do this, I worked harder and longer to get less work done and the quality of my work was rarely excellent. By focusing on doing a few, but mostly critical things, I am able to accomplish more in less time and the quality of my work has measurably improved.
You might be able to multitask physical work but any work requiring concentration cannot be multitasked. It is better to focus your efforts on the most important tasks and get them done well rather than trying to do everything and not producing anything of quality.