When I ask people who are in business, “How are things going”?, most of them say, “I’m just so busy and there’s not enough time in the day”. Everyone seems to believe that they have this near super power to multitask and push through the busyness and chaos of the day. Research shows that’s just not true. Recently, in a Globe and Mail article, two professors stated that thinking we can mindfully multitask is clearly a bad assumption.
“The brain has a limited processing capacity,” says Prof. Lavie, “and when it’s flooded with high information load, it shuts out any information that is not considered task-relevant. And then there’s simply no capacity left for other stimuli like the cars, people and street poles that we bump into.”
“We make very bad assumptions about what we’re good at,” says Prof. MacLeod. “We think we’re ‘multitaskers’ and really we’re not. Our brain allows us to switch attention fairly quickly. But we don’t always realize we’re switching. We think we’re doing two things at once, and so we get fooled.”
To learn more about your brain and busyness take a few minutes to read the full article here.
The truth is that if we want to mindfully and profitably do our work we need to slow things down, take a focus break and accept that, at times, “less is more”. That’s right less input, less chaos, less to do and less stress can result in more personal satisfaction and business profits. Remember, it’s people that power up profits. So if being busy is getting the best of you and your business then it’s time to stop with the “human doing” and start with mindfully becoming a human being.
