Multi-Tasker Extraodinaire

No matter what you are trying to achieve, the art of multitasking is an extremely valuable skill and essential in the modern world.

As the age of the specialist is quickly coming to a halt, employees and entrepreneurs are finding that a breadth of experience is more valuable than the concentration of knowledge in one defined area.

You can advance your career by engaging in a smorgasbord of skills. This concept is what has become known as Multi-tasking. Encompassed in the technical definition of multi-tasking is that a true multi-tasker will have: 1) a fast and predictable means of switching to a high priority task; 2) a means of switching to a high priority task from within an interrupt service routine; and (3) a means for honoring priorities in a real-time manner.

Multi-Tasking vs. Multiple Goals

The ability to multi-task is one of the most important skills required to run a business today. You must wear many hats and juggle many activities at the same time. Multi-tasking, as the name suggests, is all about managing multiple tasks simultaneously - not multiple goals.

Sometimes the more creative we are, the easier it is to think about all of the possibilities. And, because each possibility is exciting, we may try to pursue them all at once. Unfortunately, this strategy often leads to failure because we are not “focused.” Focus helps us concentrate all of our creative and innovative efforts on one goal.

As you try to accomplish your most important business goal, creatively multitasking will often be imperative.

Business, like art, is not all about creativity, it is also about hard work! Creating a masterpiece requires that you not only employ original ideas but, also incorporate time-tested, practical techniques and activities that are not particularly creative or original in themselves.

In building your business, keep sight of your creative vision, but also understand that there are many tried-and-true activities you must master to achieve the level of prosperity and fulfillment you seek.

Multitasking is a skill to drive your business forward. Even the smallest work of art will challenge you to multi-task creatively in order to showcase its beauty.

Multi-tasking at Home

Not only is multitasking important for your business, but it involves important life functions that come in handy at home as well.

Take parents, for example. They often simultaneously think about: where to go on summer vacation, what's for dinner, that these pants must have shrunk in the dryer, and who to pick up where from what activity. In other words, these parents are actually multi-tasking; working feverishly behind the facade of complacency.

Research into this phenomenon indicates that daydreaming is one way of opening the right-intuitive-creative side of the brain when we have spent too much time in logical left brain activities and need to balance both sides. When you’re having a difficult time trying to remember something important, such as someone's name or your child's birthday, it makes so much more sense to say, "I can't answer that question right now because there is just too much information running around in my brain," rather than "I'm having a senior moment."

Another place the blank stare can be useful is during long meetings at work. Imagine the benefits derived from being able to quip, "I'm sorry I didn't hear you because I was thinking about possible solutions to the problem you are discussing.”

One cautionary note however, the blank stare must not be used while driving or operating complex machinery.

As always, it is imperative that we keep things in perspective. Try not to become too furious when attempting to multi-task, that you become unable to appreciate the glory of one single task in particular. It is altogether possible that we may end up becoming so overloaded with a multi-tasking mentality, that we may actually be unable to combine being pleasant with being at work.

Seven Tips for Getting Started. . .