When you run a small business or startup, everything and everyone demands your attention. Constant distractions are part of the job, but they interrupt your focus. By learning how to multitask effectively amid all those distractions, you can stay on top of your work and increase your productivity.
'Effective multitasking' is sort of an oxymoron. "The human brain doesn't really multitask," says Art Markman, cognitive psychologist and author of Smart Thinking (Perigee, 2012). "What the human brain does is what I call time-sharing."
Time-sharing works like this: Your brain can only actively think about one task at a time, so you focus on one task, then another takes its place, just like vacationers occupying a timeshare property. The shift is so fast you don't even notice that you're only doing one thing at once. You feel like you're multitasking, but you are actually time-sharing.
Most of us assume we're pretty good at multitasking, but we may be deceived. "You are your own worst judge of how good a multitasker you are," Markman says. That's because the same areas of the brain that monitor your performance are also the areas activated by multitasking. You simply have less bandwidth to evaluate your performance correctly.
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