Leveraging Multitasking Myths and the Advantages of Being Multi-Passionate

In today's busy world, multitasking has become a buzzword that many people associate with productivity and success. However, recent studies have shown that multitasking is not always the most effective way to get things done. In fact, trying to do too many things at once can lead to decreased efficiency and increased stress levels.

That's where the advantages of being multi-passionate come in. Instead of trying to do several things at once, being multi-passionate means focusing on one thing at a time, but having multiple passions and interests that you can switch between. This allows you to fully immerse yourself in each task and give it your full attention, resulting in better quality work and a more fulfilling experience.

Another advantage of being multi-passionate is the ability to bring diverse perspectives and ideas to each project. By drawing on your different interests and experiences, you can approach problems and challenges from unique angles and come up with innovative solutions.

So next time you find yourself trying to juggle too many tasks at once, consider the benefits of being multi-passionate. Embrace your diverse interests and using the framework outlined in this episode,  allow yourself to fully immerse in each one, and you may find that your productivity and creativity soar to new heights

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Juli Reynolds, BSN, RN is a Board Certified Nurse Coach and Aromatherapist

Transcript

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welcome back to another week of defaulting to your extraordinary self. I'm glad you're joining me. I thought today, this would be a good time to record this because I just got off a zoom call with a group of nurses. It's a monthly mastermind. That we have for essential oil nurses. And it's just that time that we can get together and connect and collaborate. We all share a passion for holistic health care and Improving our own health and we all have a professional investment as well. In promoting various health messages and teaching courses and using our nursing experience and our passion for evidence-based essential oils. To enhance personal and professional health. And I love this group. They are always so full of great ideas, great questions. And I hope you have some sort of accountability group or mastermind because Really is very helpful in keeping us from getting stuck. And I actually have an accountability group happen to be all nurses as well. Early Saturday morning, and then to follow it with this, I've just billing. Very full. So I wanted to just talk about something that came up today. While it's fresh on my mind. And that is. I'm multitasking. It came up that what do you do when you have so many things you want to do? How do you decide on that one thing that you can get done? How do you Continue to move forward without going down a rabbit trail, or, and you could probably compare this to the times when you've tried to declutter your home or possibly clean a closet out, or you try to make some progress in your home. You start to clean out that one drawer, which leads to the other drawer, which leads to a closet, which leads to sitting on the couch, watching Netflix So if that has ever happened to you. Then you're going to this episode. So multitasking is become a coveted skill. It's become seemingly essential to juggle multiple responsibilities and interests. However, the science behind multitasking and the unique functioning. Of the female brain has sparked intriguing discussions. Like what we had this morning. We're going to explore the concept of multitasking. We're going to look into the brain, how it operates and examine. That fascinating phenomenon of being multi-passionate and that's having several different interests all at one time. I'm going to give you a framework for harnessing that focus and achieving your goals and getting the outcomes that you want. Because that is all part of our defaulting to, to our extraordinary selves is that we don't settle. For just whatever comes our way we have outcomes that we desire to make happen. And we can do that if we just apply some intentionality to that. First of all, let's talk about multitasking. Now while it's become common practice to take pride in multitasking, the human brain really isn't designed for it. In reality, what we perceive as multitasking is task switching. Where our brain rapidly alternates between different activities And the switching. Com. At a cognitive cost resulting in reduced efficiency and increased stress. First of all, let's look at the prefrontal cortex that brain's command center for decision-making and focus that plays a crucial role in multitasking. When we switched tasks, it needs to reset Which consumes those precious cognitive resources takes up some additional space that we could use in a much more efficient way. And as a result, multitasking often leads to decreased productivity and diminished overall performance. And then what happens is we get feeling really busy. We were busy, doing things all day long and I get to the end of the day and we can't account for anything. That actually got done. We were really busy, but still nothing got done. science has a lot to say about multitasking and the consensus is really clear that multitasking as it's commonly understood is more of a myth Then an effective productivity strategy. research has also shown us that Quality and accuracy tend to suffer when people Attempt to multitask. they're more prone to errors. multitasking can also hinder the ability to learn and retain information effectively. When we divide our attention among various tasks, it makes it more challenging to recall the information from memory. multitasking often also leads to increased stress levels. Constantly shifting focus and dealing with numerous responsibilities can heighten our stress and decrease the satisfaction that we have because we don't get the things done that we want to get done. We maybe aren't as sufficient. We don't feel as good. Maybe we don't learn as much. And so that satisfaction of actually working towards a goal is effected as well. And contrary to believe that multitasking saves time research indicates that it can actually consume more time. For all the reasons that we just talked about, but jumping between tasks can result in longer completion times for that task. And decrease that sense of accomplishment. Again, compare it to, when you try to clean your house and you. You move from this drawer. And then that drawer, All of a sudden you're looking through journals and you're looking through photo albums. Or you're reading a book that you found, you get the picture, right? I'm not saying that we can't do multiple things at a time. We can do some things that. Especially those things that involve muscle memory, the things that we've done many times. So you might be able to let's say, fix dinner or do things with muscle memory. more easily. Maybe you can have a conversation. You can listen to a book on audible while you're fixing dinner, because there's a lot of muscle memory involved in that too. And those tasks are not as complex. So there's that too. But more complex Tasks are better tackled with undivided attention. Multitasking think about it as task switching. And without adequate prioritization, a lot of our important tasks can end up getting neglected. And fever of some of the easier ones. Now the question this morning came up of, is that because we're nurses or is that because we're women. And I think that what we decided, what is, that was probably just the female brain. Research has shown that women. I tend to have stronger connections between the left and right hemispheres of their brain. And that promotes that enhanced, intuitive thinking and multitasking. And this increases the connectivity that enables women to really Excel in activities that require emotional intelligence and empathy. We maybe give our attention in multiple places. I remember reading a book years ago about the, the comparison that men's brains were more like waffles and women's brains, more spaghetti and according to that metaphor, men's brains are like waffles because they tend to compartmentalize different areas of their life. And they can focus on one box at a time, like work, hobbies, sports, and keep it separate. From other areas in their life were women's brains. On the other hand are said, And this metaphor has said, but to be more like spaghetti because they tend to interconnect different thoughts and feelings, much like strands of spaghetti are intertwined. That sounds a little more messy. And I think that's what we were talking about today is how do we clean up that messiness of thinking about multiple things at once and our thoughts and emotions being interconnected. That can sometimes make it challenging for us to focus on one thing at a time. With our thoughts and emotions constantly intersecting. How this a lot of times looks for me. I might be researching something and then something catches my eye. And I go down the rabbit trail of that one thing that I didn't really even mean to research. So today we were talking about health essential oils and how they play with health and how they interact in the body. We were talking about gene expression and the inflammation process. And one of, one of the nurses said, I want to learn this one thing. And then I go to study it and I. But I also want to learn this thing and this thing. And so we were talking, that's how it came up is how do we then map out our progress? we're kind of all over the place sometimes. And what happens is if we get all over the place all the time, We don't get any place. So women are great multitaskers because they can juggle multiple tasks and thoughts simultaneously. But we've talked about the cost of that, and that can also lead to feeling overwhelmed and anxious with too many thoughts. And emotions are competing for our attention all at once. And it's important for women do. Take breaks and prioritize self care to manage all of that and manage that constant intertwining of thoughts and emotions. I know that a lot of you listening in are nurses. And as far as the nurse brain goes, the processes that we've learned teach us to prioritize or triage that teaches us time management and organization delegation, adaptability teaches us teamwork and continual learning and emotional intelligence. And all of those things are factors that we need to have at play. No matter what. We do for a living. If we're going to really navigate that constant intertwining of thoughts and emotions and tasks and things that we want to put our attention to. So what we know is that women are known for our ability to multitask and it gets us into trouble sometimes because. If we don't have all of those skills that I just mentioned. For being able to manage that expectation, we can get ourselves in trouble. We can we can find ourselves making mistakes or being less productive. Or less successful than we want to be and not getting the outcomes that we want. we have to recognize the downsides of that ability and be able to leverage them as a gift and apply some skill and a strategy to being able to manage all of those connections so that we don't feel overwhelmed and anxious. With too many thoughts and interests and emotions that are all competing for our attention at once. Being multi-passionate is also a wonderful trait that we have because of all of these connections and can have a lot of different various interests and areas of focus. The diversity of passions can lead to a very fulfilling life, but it also can present the challenges and I'm going to present the framework for really addressing both issues. So this framework is for focusing on one thing and determining what the one thing is probably not as important as deciding on to choose one thing. First of all, self-awareness understanding your passions and your priorities, reflecting on what truly matters to you. And what aligns with your longterm goals. And this can be a challenge, but if I think if we the, when we apply the whole strategy that I'm going to share, we'll find that we're not having to choose one thing over another. We're just prioritizing. So recognizing that not all interests need equal attention, All at the same time. So that first of all, self-awareness and then second set, clear goals. So establishing some smart goals, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time oriented goals for each of your passions. You can actually address several passions at the same time. You just, again, we have to apply some strategy here. So having some clarity on what you want to achieve to help you prioritize that mean focus. And that might mean that some goals are going to take priority in at various times where others are going to sit for a week. So you might write down three areas in which you are passionate about Making progress on. and then create a plan for achieving those things. Not task switching. but addressing those tasks in the appropriate time. So this is where time management comes in. So if self-awareness set clear goals and then time management. And this is allocating dedicated time for each interest. Create a schedule that. And ensures that you devote quality time. To the passion while you over avoid that overwhelm. So if you have a topic that you want to research or a home project you want to complete. I put those on your calendar at times that you most want to do them because once they are scheduled, then they will get done. And then you'll know that while you're researching that topic, you have scheduled time so that you're not having to think about that home project. that really needs to get done because you have a time on the schedule that it's going to get done. So you don't have to be deciding what you want to address at the time. So another part of this framework is to learn to say no. So sometimes defaulting to yes. Means learning to say no. Resist the urge to over-commit it's essential to decline the additional projects or opportunities that may derail your focus from your core goals. And this is another reason why writing down these things are, is really important. And aligning them with your values. So when you are asked to do something that is extra, you know where your margins are to work into. So if it's something that you really want to do and you have margin then you'd be able to do that if it's aligned with your values, but you've already written that down, you've scheduled the things that are important to you. And keep the, that honor your decisions. Those are important decisions that you have made and you've spent energy on. Another part of the framework is to track your progress. So regularly assess, I like to do this. I do it weekly. Take some time at the beginning of the week, too. Assess the progress and adapt your approach as you need. So the week, my weekend wind down is usually assessing, did I make it to Friday and finish all of the things that I meant to do. If you have tuned into the growth day app, you know that I use that and Brendon Burchard refers to these as Friday finishers. And that's something that I've really adopted into my own routine. Is that just. Assessing did I finish all the things on by Friday? And then I can, when I go to my Monday management or my Sunday CEO, our. I can. Assess and I can adapt my approach. I can change some of the things that, where I want to put my focus. This self-monitoring will help you stay on course, and then you can adjust as necessary. So I do actually have a whole Worksheet on what I call Monday management and weekend wind down. I used to call it CEO Sunday. whatever you call it, just that you do it right. So if we're doing it and we're writing it down. And tracking that and being intentional, then we're going to get the things and we're getting that done that we want to have done. And we're going to get also then get the outcomes that we want. Today, we were talking about a lot of these things that come up for us and the solutions sounded a lot like the technique that I'd been implementing, except mostly I call it time blocking. But this is also a good time to explain the Pomodoro technique. The Pomodoro technique is a time management method that was designed in the 1980s by to enhance productivity and focus. It was based on a simple premise work in short concentrated bursts. Usually typically twenty-five minutes separated by short breaks. The method's name? Pomodoro was is Italian for tomato. And it was inspired by a tomato shaped kitchen timer that the creator Francesco Cirillo. Carrillo. Initially used during his university studies. The science behind the Pomodoro technique is rooted in principles of time management and cognitive psychology. A lot of the things that we already talked about. By breaking small tasks into manageable intervals and incorporating regular breaks. It aims to combat the procrastination, improve concentration. And boost overall productivity. And this approach has just gained popularity among leaders that have looked for effective ways to manage time and work more efficiently. So applying the Providore technique to multitasking, it can be challenging because the technique is primarily designed to enhance focus on a single task. However, if you can adapt the principles of the Pomodoro technique to manage your time and tasks. When you have multiple things to juggle and here's what she could do. So first of all, prioritize and plan. So you've already used our framework. You've already written down your goals and scheduled some time. But before you start your day, make that list of tasks and projects. I like to do this at the end of every day and decide what top three things am I going to address today? So prioritize them based on the, their importance and deadlines you can use. Traditional to do list or digital task management tool. And yes, the growth day app also has the same things you can do. You can create a plan in this app and create reminders. So you will get notifications on your phone. So If you like the idea of a digital task management tool, it's all there too. I talk about this app all the time. So if you're getting interested and you would like to try it and you haven't. Use the link in the show notes. It'll give you two weeks free to try it out and see what you think about it. All right. So prioritize and plan set those time blocks. And instead of using the 25 minute Pomodoro time blocks, create longer blocks. Maybe you'll need an hour or two, depending on your preference and the nature of the task. You may not be able to clean your closet in 25 minutes. I know that I could not clean my closet or do what I want to do in my closet in 25 minutes, it would take several hours. So that is important to recognize, but then I couldn't break those things into short times, maybe an hour and then take a break. So that, which leads me to the next thing is break tasks into sub tasks. So each task or each project, you can break those down into smaller mandible sub-tab tasks. tasks should be specific and achievable within that time block. So if I was going into my closet to clean my closet, maybe the first thing would be to do is. Pull out all of the clothes from the back of the closet that I have been meaning to get rid of for a long time. Pull those out. They're already in a pile. So pull those out and actually get them to where they need to go. That would be one thing that I could do. And If I include taking it to where it needs to go. It's probably, I'm probably looking at 45 minutes, take them out, put them in the car, get them to where they need to go. And I'm done. So that'd be one way to just really break that up and I could do a shorter time block. If I don't have all day. To tackle this task. if you're writing a course or you're designing a project, writing a paper. take an hour and write an outline. Break those tasks down into manageable pieces. And then allocate the appropriate amount of time. And that's going to be trial and error too. So a lot of times things take longer than we think they are going to, but just. Evaluates, like we said before. And then one of the biggest things is to eliminate distractions. During your time block, you want to eliminate as many distractions as possible. That means turning off your phone, turning off notifications. Close all of the unnecessary tabs or apps. And let other people know that you're focusing on your work. announced your family. This is what you're going to be doing for the next hour. Then they know when they can expect to see you and he are less likely to interrupt. Leave your phone outside of the room that you're working in. And. You could even set a timer, so the timer goes off and then you can go check your messages So avoid the temptation to switch between tasks because that can lead to that. Those, all of those tasks switching costs that we talked about. And. Make sure you take short breaks After you complete a task or a sub task, take a short break. Take a walk. Do something that's going to recharge. You might just even do some stretching. A typical Pomodoro break is about five minutes and you can adjust that to your needs. So use that time to stretch or hydrate. You can even briefly check messages if you absolutely have to. I would avoid it if you're coming back to that same focus, but that would be the time to do that. And again, periodically review your task list and adjust the priorities. If you need to. that way you can ensure that you're making the best use of that time and your goals and meeting the deadlines. And then continue to cycle through your time blocks. So you can repeat those all as necessary, focusing on different tasks or the subtext tasks, sub tasks. Be flexible. Adapt. Give yourself compassion. and that self-awareness so that as new tasks arise, And there were changes, arise that you can adapt so you can reflect and learn on that process. And refine your process over time. So by adapting the Pomodoro technique to multitasking, you can maintain that structured approach to manage your varied, interests and responsibilities while you minimize the negative effects of constant task. Switching. That's going to help us stay organized and efficient even when we're tackling multiple tests through the day. Seek supports is another really important part of the framework. Surround yourself with support network that understands your multi-passionate nature. Share your goals and progress, which is why it's so important to have these masterminds and the accountability groups. And this can be is just as easy as getting together with a couple trusted friends. On a consistent basis to share your goals and your progress. with those who can provide valuable feedback and encouragement. This is also a place where a coach is very helpful as well. So that you can, you have that accountability, So that's really what our mastermind is about. Because we're one person's struggles, someone else's discovered a solution. And so these masterminds, not only are we sharing information and sharing the things that we learn, we're also sparking ideas and and getting on the solution side together. And I really love that. And especially because these are like-minded nurses for me, they share that passion. And so our solutions are usually on that same track that they are aligned with our values. Then. So if you don't have this, that kind of support and you don't have that kind of accountability with like-minded people. That can provide that. Feedback and encouragement and are learning along with you. Then I encourage you to find that. And if you don't know where to start, I am starting a book club. So I read a lot of books that sometimes I share those with you here as sometimes I don't get a chance to share all of it. Of course. a lot of the value that I get from reading book is in having someone to share it with. And I love book clubs. So I've always wanted to be part of one. And I thought why don't I just start one that is for. This community and people who want to default to extraordinary. And love all things personal growth. So if you're interested in that, I'm going to put a link in the show notes below so that you can go and find out a little bit more about it. And theirs. No cost to this and I'm hoping that this community, this book club will be a place where you would find good friends, good support colleagues, like minded people who are on that personal growth journey who want to get up every day, a default to their extraordinary self. And we can support each other in that way and learn along the way. if you're not a reader per se. Join anyway, because this is where the discussion is going to happen. And we really do want to just, it's going to be probably more focused on the topic of the book than the specific book. So hopefully we'll have a lot of connection and collaboration going on there and this there'll be community for that kind of support. before you move on to your next focus task, subscribe and share. Get your friends listening to this podcast too. And then you can talk about. The various ways that you apply the tips that we talk about and come up with your own solutions as well. it would mean the world to me. If you did share this episode. So that we could create a great big community of those who default to yes. We can embrace our gifts and our ability to have interest in several things. So multitasking, the female brain being multi-passionate are all intricate aspects of our lives, our extraordinary lives. And while multitasking has its limitations, it's essential that we harness. Our unique brain functions to manage our diverse interests. A thoughtful framework rooted in self-awareness goal. Setting time management and support will guide us. Towards achieving our desired outcomes, no matter how many passions that we embrace. And embracing the power of a focus with a beautiful complexity of your multi-passionate journey. Scientific evidence suggests that multitasking as commonly practices, is less effective and efficient than focusing on one task at a time. While the human brain is indeed capable of rapid switching between tasks. It comes at a cognitive cost. Rather than trying to multitask many experts recommend techniques like time management prioritization at the Pomodoro technique. To help us maintain focus and maximize productivity. As we navigate the complexities of our fast paced world, let us also recognize the gifts of multitasking and being multi-passionate. Our ability to embrace diverse interests and responsibilities. By applying these techniques and frameworks, we can leverage the gifts effectively maximize our potential to achieve our goals. And remembering the words of Albert Einstein. The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. So Gracie's techniques and the multifaceted nature of your life. that path to remarkable achievements, one focused interval at a time. You can get up every day and default to your extraordinary self.