Countless people all over the world are in the same situation. In the urge to reap maximum benefits and win the race of life and success, you try dealing with multiple tasks and are always on your toes. However, what exactly is the outcome of this activity? Do you feel the sense of fulfillment and get the desired results; or do you lose your focus altogether and wonder why is that all happening?Well, the root cause is trying to manage various tasks and expecting great results. So, the myth, the fallacy that spinning too many plates in your life will make you smarter or lead you to success should be averted. The latest research form Stanford University has concluded that multitasking actually damages your brain, as it tries to pay attention to multifaceted tasks and thus loses the focus altogether. Additionally, the researchers discovered that people who are constantly exposed to multitasking, do not have the same abilities as those who only perform one task at a time to pay attention, recall information, or move between tasks.Just for a moment, have a think and check if you have the following challenges when involved in multiple tasks:
Finding it hard to meet the deadlines
Overall time mismanagement
Frustration and discontentment
Self-sabotaging demeanor and mindset
Feeling exhausted, overworked but unsuccessful, etc.
These feelings and outcomes are natural to occur when you follow the mythical idea of being over absorbed in several tasks. In the long run, though, you tend to feel like an unsuccessful person with no real or solid achievement to celebrate. So, why do you prefer spinning plates? Well, here are a few reasons:
You like getting involved in several tasks just to feel a sense of achievement. When you do so, you lose your focus, and what happens next? As a result of your lack of focus, your prospects of attaining success in any of them are diminished. Alternately, if you look at it from a new perspective, you would see the possible glimpse of imposter syndrome that is typically manifested by avoiding, dismissing, or destroying one’s own accomplishments. So, when you spin too many plates, you actually make yourself falsely believe that you are devoting enough effort and that you’ll eventually succeed in some areas.
Additionally, when you are involved in necessary multitasking, what you are doing is saying yes to every offer, overworking and overexerting yourself leading to less peace and more turmoil. By consenting to all sorts of tasks you not only overexert yourself, you also show a weaker side of your personality because you fail to manage so many tasks at a time and thus the clients and other people, in general, lose their trust in you. The consequence is that you feel less fulfilled, hollow, and depressed.
If you look at this research, you might understand why multitasking can be hazardous for your mental health. According to the article, multitasking leads to mental agitation, depression and may cause social anxiety too. So, under such circumstances, can you expect your business or yourself to grow or flourish? Indeed, that is just not possible.
Frequent multitaskers don’t perform well because they have difficulty organising their thoughts and sorting out important relevant info vs not so important; but just as big a problem is the downtime that happens when we switch from one task to another. We actually get slower at switching and it takes more time to get back to where we were. The end result is a big downturn in productivity. Productivity becomes low and we feel we need to do more tasks to compensate, and the vicious spiral gets worse and worse!Research is clear and precise that your brain can only focus on one thing at a time. When you try to do two things at once your brain just can’t cope with performing both tasks at the same time. Don’t believe me? Try listening to two radios with two different channels at the same time?In short, while it may seem like a very captivating idea, spinning too many plates in your life is only draining you more with every passing day. You wish to reach the pinnacle of success but with this approach, it may remain a dream for you.