Distance yourself from the label of being a born multitasker, build your unique system and maximise your time and energy!
The notion that women are natural-born multitaskers has long persisted and often talked about in the meetings, in social gatherings, events and homes. While women have also bought into believing that they have some extra ability to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously, the reality based on many studies debunk this myth.
The reality is that this myth, and women’s belief in it and hence their constant struggle to be the ultimate multitasking expert could even be harming their health, their mind and overall, their leadership and creative thinking abilities.
Furthermore, the myth of women as natural multitaskers perpetuates unrealistic expectations and adds to the already substantial burden placed on women in leadership roles. The pressure to excel in every aspect of work and life can lead to burnout, stress, and a sense of inadequacy. Instead of celebrating multitasking as a feminine virtue, society should recognize the value of prioritization, delegation, and single-task focus.
In a world where success hinges on precision and strategic decision-making, this lack of laser focus can be detrimental to women leaders and entrepreneurs.
Let me share few studies that reveal how multitasking often reduces productivity and efficiency and even makes us prone to more stress.
- Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D., a behavioral psychologist, author, coach, and consultant in neuropsychology suggested that one can lose up to 40% of one’s productivity with regular and continuous multi-tasking.
- A study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, however, indicates that multitasking often leads to less efficiency of brain. The authors proposed new models of cognitive control. The first, called goal shifting, involves actively deciding to change tasks. The multitasking environment requires your brain to turn on and off the cognitive rules of the old task vs new tasks at regular intervals. The extra time it takes for the brain to fully switch attention and cognitive rules lead to inefficiency.
- Another study suggests that all the constant multitasking which essentially includes a high number of interruptions on regular basis might actually be making one’s stress and fear worse.
Amplify your success by using my Golden Hours Productivity System.
It is time to distance yourself from trying to do everything at the same time and instead discover the magic of laser focus, taking productive magic breaks and create a system that supports you, works for you and give you a true sense of accomplishment and peace.
What is Golden Hours Productivity System?
Every one of us is unique and so are our motivational triggers, habits and also working styles. Some people like to use nighttime on their most difficult tasks while some are at their best in morning.
- First step is to identify your golden hours
- Secondly shift your existing working style a little bit to make sure that you are using your golden hours for activities that truly matter.
- Third; restructure your important-but-not-critical tasks, activities and schedule away from your golden hours
- Practise this system, and have an open and free discussion with those around you, family and colleagues, teams and partners and let them know about your system to buy their understanding in it
- Make it your own – try and see what works best for you and then set it up so the system can in return set you for better success in productivity and peace.
Five creative strategies to safeguard your productivity system
Setting some easy and clever rules will ensure that your sacred high-productivity space continues to serve you.
- Schedule Power Hours: Designate specific blocks of time as “power hours” during which you tackle your most challenging tasks.
- Establish Frequent Interruption Free Timeslots: Designate your area where you can work with laser focus and no distractions and interruptions. Whether it’s a home office or a designated corner in a coworking space, once you have set it up and let everyone around know which hours you cannot be interrupted, you will start to see the immediate impact on your schedule.
- Practice Saying No to Distractions in Your Golden Hours: Learn to prioritize your commitments and politely decline requests that do not align with your plans, at-least for the hours you have set for yourself. By setting clear boundaries around your time and energy, you can focus on activities that contribute most to your success.
- Embrace Digital Detoxes in Your Golden Hours: Set boundaries around technology and disconnect from emails, social media, and other digital distractions to focus solely on critical tasks.
- Create a No-Meeting Days or Hours: Reserve your most creative and productive hours of the day as a “no-meeting zone” to safeguard uninterrupted time for deep work and focused productivity. Another great alternative is to make some days Meeting FREE and schedule all meetings for certain days.
- Own it. Beautify it. Guard it. Make it Work For You.
This Golden Hours space, along with any specific physical environment, can be made as beautiful and magical by you, adding what supports your mental, emotional and physical wellness and becomes more conducive to concentration and productivity.
By implementing these creative boundary-building strategies, entrepreneurs can harness their most productive hours and propel their ventures to new heights of success.
Taking power back from being a burnt-out multitasking -I can-never-say-no to founder to a powerful laser focus founder only needs you to understand what works best for you and build an easy and supporting structure around you.
In conclusion, the gender myth of women as natural-born multitaskers is outdated and counterproductive. By dispelling this myth and re-evaluating our approach to productivity, we can create a more equitable and empowering environment for women in leadership and entrepreneurship.