Multitasking and Productivity

From time immemorial if there is one adjective that has defined us women well, especially the professional women, which has tagged along forever, is that we are great ‘multitaskers’. There is absolutely no doubt about that considering that we indeed do it all from taking care of the tiniest issue at home to sorting out the greatest board-room challenge. But this is exactly where the pitfall lies too! And no I am not exactly going down the oft beaten track of explaining how over-loaded we working women are. We are overloaded, period. But can we do anything about it? Can we at least try to understand what exhausts us and how we can take care of the deliverance with comparative ease?

I feel if we are cautious of the following three simple points a lot of situations stand sorted:

1) Multitask, just don’t try to ‘Multiperfect’- ‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ should not sound so bad to us, I mean, really, what is the harm in being an ‘A’ grader along with a couple of ‘B’s on that merit sheet that we constantly keep on marking ourselves. It’s the law of average that counts and the law of average works positively for us only when after an exhausting day we finish our to-do list with our smiles intact. So let us try to accomplish as much as we want but let us not do too much of benchmarking for each objectives all the time. Try not to ponder upon each task too much, simply set a target, act and finish.

2) Productivity problem is actually an over commitment problem’- and I absolutely true that! We should try and gauge how much time on an average we require to finish up any work, be it of any kind, in a single day. If we can trace the amount of time we require to commute we can easily trace how much time needs to be dedicated to each ‘type’ of work in a day. Time is a finite resource and over-commitment acts like an accumulated debt that should be avoided at any cost.

3) Money may buy us happiness, but can it compensate loss?- This is a question that we need to ask more and more to put things straight and give us a clear perspective. If time is over there is no rerun. So set as clear goals as possible keeping the bigger picture in mind. If our child , or our family, requires our undivided attention, some quality time, be prepared and willing to give it. The definition of quality, these days with the plethora of visual distractions, can be summed up in two words, ‘eye contact’.

And yes, of course, never forget to smile!.....:)

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