The Art of Uni-Tasking

This past week I was in Atlanta, GA for a real estate tech conference where I got the honor of hearing my friend Matthew Shadbolt deliver a very powerful presentation on how social media is ruining us.  He shared about the addictions people are forming to the instant gratification and recognition they receive on social networks like Twitter & Facebook.  The mentions, likes & comments we receive release a level of oxytocin that makes us feel better.  Once a person starts to receive some, it becomes even more addicting.

It gets to the point where people spend hours at a time bouncing from one social network to another trying to find another dose.  Not only is the addiction a bad thing, but it has also caused more and more people to do more multitasking each and every day.  No longer are we just focusing on our duties for our job, but we also splitting our time that should be spent working on a task on Facebook updates, Twitter statuses, and all other types of social networks.

While I used to believe that by multitasking I was accomplishing more.  I also used to brag at how well I could do it and how I could do so many things at once.  But what Matthew shared in his presentation changed my whole thinking.  No longer am I going to try & multitask.  Instead, I’ve implemented a new work into my daily routine called uni-tasking.

To me, uni-tasking means I will no longer keep my inbox, Facebook, Twitter, iMovie and several other networks/programs open at the same time and bounce from one to another.  Instead, I am going to only do one at a time and shut the other networks off.

On Monday I tested this theory to see how it would work.  I shut everything off but my inbox.  I took the next three hours and spent just the time on email.  What I noticed is that I was able to respond to everything I need and seemed to be much more focused on it while doing so.  I also found I didn’t miss the likes, mentions and praises that the social networks provide.  I was then able to move on to another task without having to wonder if everything was finished or not.  I found myself more productive than I’ve been in weeks and had everything done to then spend time with family.

So in closing, this uni-tasking might just be the best thing I implement into my business in a long time.  If you don’t believe me, give it a try and see if you receive the same results.  My guess is you will be amazed at what you can accomplish by trying to just do one thing at a time.