The Multitasking Trap

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

multitasking, activities, tasks, leverage, rat race, long term memory, day, paradigm, talks, calendar, switching, flow, connected, episode, week, working, hats, people, carve, reawaken

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In Stella Collins book neuroscience for learning and development, David Rock talks about in your brain at work, he talks about multitasking being like trying to keep multiple actors on stage at the same time, all of whom demand the limelight. Multitasking impacts your working memory, drains your mental resources and affects how well you encode information into long term memory. Stick with me for today's episode, where we'll dive into multitasking, why we do it, the concept of getting into a flow state, and this is all about getting out of the rat race and working with the power of your mind.

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The following was recorded in front of a live studio audience at the studio 21 podcast cafe. This is the United Podcast Network.

00:53

Welcome to rat race reboot. I'm your host, Laura Noel. And as a certified coach and former 27 year military leader, each week, I provide bite sized mindset pivots that will help you reset your mind reawaken your spirit and regain your control. Hello, everybody, and welcome back for another episode. I'm excited about today's topic because I was the queen of multitasking. In fact, you know, we attract who we are, when I first started coaching, I attracted a lot of people who were multitaskers Of course, I attract a lot of type A overachievers I still am one at heart. But I remember one of my clients saying repeatedly, I'm really good at multitasking. And I like yeah, of course you are. But you know what multitasking. The the, the idea of it and thinking that we can do much more when we're multitasking is a fallacy. There's a lot of science, backing that a lot of studies behind that, that say that it's just adding more to your cognitive load, it's putting you in stress mode. And it's making things more difficult for you in terms of long term memory. For example, like I said in that quote earlier, but it's showing you that you don't perform as well, that's what the research is saying you don't perform as well when you multitask, as opposed to when you're focusing your attention on one task at a time. Now, multitasking, I will say can be effective when you, for example, are scrolling through social media and watching TV, or you're making a cup of coffee or tea and you're talking to a friend, you don't have to give 100% of your focus to that task to be effective with it. Multitasking, of course, it's doing multiple activities kind of at the same time, doing not giving 100% to any of them. But I also think about multitasking as similar to switching tasks quickly on and off throughout the course of a day. I remember working with a coach and she looked at my calendar, and was asking me, How many times a day are you changing hats? And I'm like, Well, what do you mean, I take phone calls at this time. And then I'm doing deep study, and I'm writing content at this time. And then I'm doing proposals during this time. And then I have my exercise time. And she's like, that's exactly what I mean, you're changing your hearts multiple times in a day. And when I was doing some training with the one thing.

03:37

And that was a phenomenal training course to go through. And if you haven't looked them up, I am NOT an affiliate of them. Definitely look them up the one thing, but they teach you how to stay on track and on course with your most important things. They help you prioritize tasks, so you're not spread out peanut butter spread with a bunch of different tasks. But what what this enabled me to do is once I realized that I was switching hats, multiple times in a day, I time blocked my calendar to where you know, one day was I'm working on, you know ideating and thinking and dreaming and strategic planning. A couple of days in the afternoons, I'm taking phone calls, another half a day I'm doing, you know, content creation. And then maybe on Fridays or late Thursday afternoons is when I kind of wrap up the week and do proposals. But I'm not changing my hat multiple times in a day. And what that enabled me to do is to get in a flow state. And that's really what we're after. You know, when people are in a flow state and I wrote this author's name down, when we're in a flow state, we're kind of this was in Stella's book as well. It feels good. It feels like we're fully in immersed in something that we're giving our all, there's, we're energized, we're focused, we're highly involved in that activity. And a lot of people that I've talked to including myself, when I'm in a flow state, there's a lot more joy in the things that I'm doing, I feel creative, you're tapping into that creativity, because you have a, you have the opportunity to gain some momentum in something as opposed to up well, I had an hour dedicated to this. And now I'm going to do this. Do you know it takes about 17 minutes to reset, to move from one activity and then to refocus on another one. If you're constantly doing that, throughout the day, think about how much time you're wasting over the course of a day, over the course of a week, a month, a year. And how much of that time are you really just doing activities, you're in the grind, and you're not really in that flow state, where you're in that state of flow. And that's really what we're after here. And rat race reboot, it's so that you can leverage your creativity, you can really dive deep into something that you're working on and do it with excellence. And, and you're also after the joy and the fulfillment in accomplishing those things. And being immersed in those tasks, your feeling is the conscious awareness of the vibration you're in. So what I would do, first and foremost, excuse me, clear my throat there is be aware, take a look at your calendar, where are you switching hats at multiple times during the day, and see if you can start to time block and put similar activities in one block, so that you're doing the same type of task in one time block throughout your day, so that you're not switching gears all the time. But the other important aspect here is if you really want to leverage time management, I say that in air quotes, time management, you can't manage time, you can only manage your activities. But if you really want to understand your relationship with time, you have to get to the root cause of how you manage your activities. And the root cause, of course, is in your paradigm look, there are a lot of time management tools and things out there that you can leverage and use. But if you're not programmed to use them, if you have this warped relationship with time, which many of us type A overachievers do, then it doesn't matter what tool you implement, it is not going to stick. So you have to first and foremost, change your beliefs change your relationship with time, time management, activity management,

07:59

you have to be aware of what your beliefs are, and what your paradigms are around time management, and then you have to change it. Now it's different for everyone. Why do we understand and know what tools we should leverage with regard to scheduling and timing our activities and managing our activities? Why do we have all of this at our fingertips, and yet, we don't leverage it? Well, there's a knowing doing gap. And that knowing doing gap is your paradigm. So if you want to close that gap, first and foremost, like I said, you want to get clear on what your paradigms are. And for every individual that's different. And then you want to start changing it. Like we talked about in our previous episodes, when I had the guest on mica Cooney, we had a great conversation about, you know, neurons that fire together, wire together, that's hebbs Law, You're conditioned to operate the way that you operate, to structure your day, the way that you structure it to fall into the trap and false belief that you can be more effective through multitasking, even though consciously you're telling yourself, Oh, I know that's not true. The data, the science is there. Laura's telling me this, but why is it when I take a step forward, I take 10 steps back. It's the paradigm. So I encourage you if you are ready to nip this in the bud after. But after all, that I want you to get connected on a call with me. I will help you figure out what your paradigms are, what some of the beliefs are that are keeping you stuck. And I'll help you rewrite that script. I'll help you reprogram your subconscious mind so that you're in alignment with what you want to create and not what you've been creating. And if that's of interest to you that I want you to go to rat race reboot.com Subscribe to our channel, download our free download, we have our quantum leap handbook up there right now. Go to whatever platform you listen to your podcasts on. And leave us a review. Message me. I'll also have my calendar on the show notes. So I am tongue twisted today, I have my calendar on the show notes so that you can book a call with me directly. And we can get clear on what are you doing? What are some of the ways that you are getting in your way? What does your time blocking and schedule a blocking look like? Where do you feel like you are stuck in your mind throughout your day, and then we'll craft a plan moving forward. So go on rat race reboot.com, look at the show notes and find my calendar there book that one on one call. It's a 15 minute strategy session, and I'll get you pointed in the right direction. But today, I want to close our episode and I want you to get getting thinking about what would your day look like if you had the utmost freedom? What would you do with all that free time? If you weren't caught up in the rat race? What would you do? If I can help you carve out an extra hour or two hours out of your day to do whatever you wanted to ideate to dream to maybe spend more time with friends and family, maybe go to lunch with a friend and fully enjoy it instead of thinking about work or checking your phone. Right? So I want to close today's episode the way that we always do. But I want you to think about what would you do if you had an extra hour or two each and every day. Okay, so let's get connected with our breath. Take a deep breath in through your nose, and exhale fully and completely. Inhale and exhale if you had an extra hour at your disposal, and you were not going to fill it with more work, what would you do if you had an extra two hours a day if you had an extra over the course of a week, seven hours to do whatever you want to pursue your passions, your dreams. Maybe you've been meaning to get connected with a cause that's near and dear to your heart. But you just can't seem to carve out the time to give in the way that you want to.

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See, getting out of the rat race isn't just about you. It's about who you get to become when you're standing in your fullest potential. But it's also about the ripple effect. You get to create within your home within your circle of influence within your organization in the world. And you can only step into your highest potential. When you carve the time out for yourself to think and to do things that expand your heart and bring you joy. Remember, feeling is the conscious awareness of the vibration and energy you're in. And like energy attracts like energy.

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Think about times when you felt truly at ease and joyful. And then maybe you noticed that there seemed to be a train of good events and things happening all around you during those times. More reasons to be joyful and connected. That's the stuff that life is made of that living this that we want more of what would your life be like if you didn't have to sacrifice your success? And you got to experience more of the livingness of life. Imagine Welcome back. Whatever you imagined you experiencing the full livingness of life, the joy, the giving the success, the relationships, whether or not you're living that now, if you can see it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand that is meant for you. Everything is created twice, first in your imagination. That's why we always end every episode with taking inspired action and visualizing what we want the change we want to be first in your imagination. And then in physical form, always it happens that way. So I want to thank you for joining us on today's episode. And I would love to hear your feedback. Subscribe to us on YouTube, subscribe to our channel, go to whatever platform you listen to our podcast on and leave a review, leave a written review, leave a five star review. I read those and that helps us get the message out to more people. But thanks again for joining us this week, and I look forward to seeing you next week.

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The views and opinions expressed by the hosts guests or callers of this program do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the studio 21 podcast cafe, the United Podcast Network, its partners or affiliates.