Is Multitasking Hurting Your Productivity?

I am the queen of multitasking.

Isn’t every mama, though?

When I brush my teeth, I’m putting in a load of laundry.

As I’m nursing the baby I’m writing Instagram posts.

Cooking and dishes are usually done at the same time…sometimes I get carried away with one or the other, and then I’m behind on supper!

I never watch the TV…I’m usually on my phone, reading a book, or carrying on a conversation. I can seemingly do both at once.

Right now I’m eating dinner and writing this! Bite…chew and write. Haha!

To tell you the truth, I’m proud of this.

I’m proud of my super-power to multitask. Gosh, I don’t just multitask. I do it at the speed of light. If I didn’t…nothing would ever get done!

The bed wouldn’t be made as I’m stuffing an arm in my shirt…

Bread wouldn’t be made without me simultaneously drinking my morning coffee…

Children wouldn’t be paid attention to without me also folding clothes or cleaning the floor…

We wouldn’t get to church on time if I wasn’t applying my eye liner in the car…

Right?

Could it be that I’m wrong?

I had something hit me like a ton of bricks the other day. My whole life I’ve thought that I could get more done if I did it quickly, and I also did more than one thing at once.

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In her book, Teaching From Rest, Sarah Mackenzie smacked me in the face with this truth:

“But there is no prize for the mom who checks the most boxes on her to-do list. There just isn’t a way to steep yourself fully in this moment if you multitask your way through it…our brains can only attend to one thing at a time. What we usually think of as multitasking is actually task switching, and it is both an inefficient and ineffective way to work.”

Teaching from Rest p 50

Admittedly, I bristled at this sentiment at first. I thought that I am different than everyone else, and I must always multitask with the greatest speed if I want to complete anything.

Then as I muddled through cleaning up Legos while answering questions about snakes from my son…I think to myself: maybe Sarah is onto something!

Relationships vs the Task

Now, she is not saying that our to-do lists are evil and we must never do any hard work! Not at all! That would be so unrealistic. We need to know what needs to be done and we need to work hard to do it. She is saying that there is a benefit in our relationship with our children if we don’t rush through the day in a tizzy, but we can slow down and smell the proverbial flowers.

This book is about how to homeschool your children without losing your mind, basically. Teaching From Rest was recommended to me by many mamas. Now I know why!

Homeschool or not, all mamas have so much to do. Here lately, I’ve been in such a whirlwind of tasks that I brush off simply playing with puzzles in the floor with my kids. I’m scurrying around trying to throw lunch together–quickly I might add–all the while making a huge mess, getting frustrated with my kids for getting in my way, and not cleaning up after myself, but leaving it for later.

Consider this: if I were to slow down and stop doing so many things at once, maybe I wouldn’t be in a tizzy, I wouldn’t drop mayonnaise in the floor, then I wouldn’t be frustrated that I tripped over a toy.

Maybe slowing down and savoring each task by itself, as it naturally comes, might benefit me.

Children are never a waste of time

Sarah also points to the fact that at the end of the day, will we be thinking, man I wish I had cleaned more or got through one more task; or would we rather “waste” five extra minutes listening to the childish ramblings of our kids before they go to bed?

So many times I’ve told them to hush up and get to sleep so I could rush in the kitchen and finish dishes. Or just to have some time to myself.

But relationships are not a waste of time. Who cares if the dishes are clean in the morning? (Ok…I know that’s important too, but hear me out.)

We won’t necessarily remember that we needed to check that one last thing off our list. We will want to remember how our babies looked as they sleepily gave us another hug and kiss. Or how they wanted us to tell them a story. I’d much rather remember these things anyway, instead of an old dirty sink!

Being Efficient

“What if, instead of trying to make the most of our time, we worked harder at savoring it? What if we were more intentional and lavish with our time and more detached from our checklists? Getting caught up in plans for what is coming next or trying to squeeze everything possible into this moment right now is a surefire way to miss the gift of this moment, today, and it is a certain path to anxiety. Teaching from rest doesn’t mean we aren’t planning ahead (in fact, we will likely need to use written plans and checklists), and it definitely doesn’t mean we are lazy. It means that we are doing one thing at a time, and we do that thing with all our heart.”

Teaching From Rest p 51

Isn’t that some fine wisdom?

Is this something you’ve thought of before?

It was news to me, and I’m so glad I finally read this book! Learning to slow down and savor time instead of completing tasks is just another arsenal in the homemaking/homeschooling toolbelt to help us out along the way, wouldn’t you say?

For more posts on productivity and time management, read Grandmother’s Homemaking Secrets series!