3 Tips on How to Multi-Task Right

Within the current multi-tasking structure, most employees work within a few functions outside their actual job position. For instance, your role might be a product specialist, but you work as a communication coordinator for a few projects, and also take on a few tasks in the marketing department. This phenomenon has developed significantly in the last decade, and is termed as context-switching, where you’ll find yourself shifting between different tasks, tools, and projects on a frequent basis throughout the work day. According to Harvard Business Review, this can lead to a 40% drop in productivity, if performed without proper planning. With the shift to remote working, our workdays have become increasingly fragmented between tasks and meetings. However, multi-tasking can easily become a positive workplace motivator if implemented in a strategic manner. Here are 3 strategies to ensure that you are multi-tasking in a productive and beneficial manner. According to Rescue Time, employees spend only 41% of their time on their job-specific tasks; largely due to the disruptions while working on different tasks without an existing priority structure. The easiest way to improve your efficiency in this context is blocking time for certain task-brackets throughout the day. The actual length of time for each activity can be based on your own discretion and your employer’s expectations; but the goal here is to free yourself from non-urgent meetings and messages, by setting calendar events that other employees can see. The focus should not be only setting time blocks for high-priority work, but even for other tasks such as checking e-mails or replying to queries on communication channels. This way, a team can re-organize their workflows to fulfill everyone’s needs and schedules, and ensure cohesive productivity peaks. Your schedule can act as the foundation to increasing your task-specific efficiency, but without a strong mental reinforcement, you might slip back into a task-switching mentality. You must build a mentality that you can focus and complete a task within the time blocks you set. Completing a single task at a time, can be simpler and less-stressed to break it down into stages till completion. Another strategy is to start small and track your time using a timer. This will allow you to gauge your efficiency from stage to stage, understand where your inefficient gaps are, and help you hold yourself accountable to the amount of time you spend on the task overall. A routine or a ritual could be any type of repeated behavior that has meaning to you, and signals to your mind that it’s time to switch gears – anything from bathroom breaks to grabbing a cup of coffee. The action itself doesn’t matter as much as what it symbolizes. Performing it with the intention to move into another mentality will help you adjust yourself to a different functional task. These tips can be effective against the consistent disruptions of a remote-working environment, if implemented well. However, while the use of multiple tools to facilitate communication and collaboration will perpetuate a task-switching mentality within an organization, it is missing a centralized solution that can minimize the number of queries, reviews and ad-hoc communication around projects. TRIYO provides a unified solution to collaborative working. Our application allows teams to designate specific roles for specific tasks and projects. Instant updates and notifications can be filtered and sorted to your preferred communication channel such as email or MS Teams! Whichever application works towards your multi-tasking schedule, TRIYO provides an integration into it such as the MS Office Suite, Google Suite and JIRA. Learn more about our product here, or fill out the contact us form so we can help you make the shift towards your productivity potential.