4 ways to focus and avoid task switching.

Darrell Velegol, PhD
2023sep06

I just typed something into Bard (Google version of ChatGPT) to see what it would tell me. Question: What happens if you try to ride two horses with one ass? Answer: If you try to ride two horses with one ass, you will likely fall off. This is because you do not have enough leverage to control two horses at the same time. The horses will also be confused and may start to fight each other.

Falling off, fighting horses, another part of the answer mentioned getting hurt. The essence of goal setting is to DECIDE (etymology = “to cut off”) what to avoid, so that amidst your daily hurricane of home and work and community tasks, you can advance on some interest of yours. But  some of us still insist at times on task switching, neglecting the age old essence of goal setting. What are three ways that we can FOCUS and avoid task switching on our important projects?

1. Schedule big rocks on our calendar. Put the most important projects or work (i.e., the big rocks) on our calendar before anything else, so that we can avoid having our days all chopped up. People will try to invade our calendar, but we must decide (again, to cut off) not to do other work, so that we can FINISH our own super important project. I recommend starting with one or two blocks of 4 hours in a week.

2. Avoid distractions by being hard to find. Everyone else will survive the 4 hours without us! I recommend scheduling our 4 hour block at a different location: a favorite coffee shop, alternative office, home, or anywhere except where we are more likely to be interrupted.

3. Break the work into bite size chunks. Sometimes we can overwhelm ourselves by trying to do too much in a 4 hour block of time. I recommend breaking down the project into parts, and becoming your own project manager, sometimes over several days or even several weeks. It might even take one of your 4 hour blocks just to PLAN the next several blocks of time. Usually good planning takes 10-15% of the total time of a job. Then … drip by drip you’ll get the work done.

4. Collaborate with others to create your time blocks. If you just cannot get away for even one block of time per week, that’s hard, and it happens. I recommend working with a team of 2 or 3 other people, who can cover for you while you’re out, and then you exchange and cover for them while they are out.

If you’re already getting one or more 4 hour blocks of time each week, good for you! Try to set aside even more if possible! If not, try strategy (4) above to create at least 1 block per week. Your projects and your creativity are important. Find the time to bring it all to life.