Analysis Paralysis…

Seems to be the name of the game for waaaaay to many people these days.  Trying to do too much, too soon, with too little, all in the name of something that may or may not be great for computers, but completely sucks for humans.   MULTITASKING

I was at LaunchTree Live this past weekend in Las Vegas and Brad Fallon of StomperNet fame made a killer presentation about the inefficiency of multitasking.  That’s right IN-efficiency.  An old boss of mine used to refer to multitasking as juggling balls, “Just one more Phil, don’t let the math beat you.”  Hmmm…the math; that would be the problem in the first place.

The Japanese built an entire philosophy around the importance of NOW, also known as Zen.  The key to it’s mastery is the ability to FOCUS.  Notice I didn’t say walking across a tightrope while balancing a ball on your nose; or checking email while writing a blog post, listening to a podcast and taking a phone call.  Nope, that would be the opposite of focus, and it’s the reason most things get done behind schedule and usually poorly at that.

Brad used the example of a 30 day plan with ten days planned for each of three tasks.  The first, and common model looked something like this:

Task 1: 5 days   Task 2: 5 days   Task 3: 5 days  Task 1: 5 days  Task 2: 5 days   Task 3: 5 days

If you’re paying attention you’ll notice that the first task takes 20 days to complete, and so do all the rest!  Not exactly efficient or effective.  If you’re work habits look anything like mine used to be (and still are from time to time) you’ll likely agree that 5 day chunks of attention is EXTREMELY generous.  When I was working at the job I previously alluded to I was lucky to have the same task for an hour.  The problem was I thought I was a really good multitasker, and I’ve been told that by a lot of people.  The problem is, they were right.  Yep, I happened to be very good at the wrong thing.

Let’s look at a more focused model that Brad shared:

Task 1: 10 days  Task 2: 10 days  Task 3: 10 days

First thing to notice, if you check the math, is that each task only takes 10 days from start to finish.  The other interesting thing you’ll find is that you’ll likely knock a few days off of each task just due to good focus.  See, when you don’t have to keep shifting gears all the time, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to get things done.

So try this experiment on for size.  Make a list of your top three tasks and then simply do the first task until it’s completely done.  Not only will it free you of the task, it will free from THINKING and WORRYING about the task.  It’s a success sitting in your personal bank account to collect positive interest for your next task.

Now that’s the kind of momentum that can get you where you want to go.

Now get busy!

Phil Hughes

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