Driving your car and doing emails, impossible, and very dangerous for all of those that are still do this. Talking on the phone and listening to someone having a conversation with you, impossible to concentrate. Multitasking does not work. I have been for so long that person who multitasked and vouched for its effectiveness. Feeling anxiety when I didn’t have enough time to finish anything. How wrong I was.

Multitasking is the biggest productivity lie!

Do you always feel like you keep running out of time during your day? Do you arrive home feeling like almost nothing was accomplished? Do you fell like you have barely scratched the surface of what you set out to do? Trying to multitask wastes of your time. This is a proven fact and has been studied over and over again. A Microsoft research shows that immediately answering texts and emails hinders high-level thinking. A Study from Stanford University shows that it hiders normal development in social skills.

Here’s an example; you are answering an email and the phone rings. You stop to answer and once finished with the call, you go back to finishing answering the email you left off when the phone rang. Do you pick up where you left off or read from the beginning to get back into the flow of the answer? Of course you read back what was started then continue.

When you switch from one task to another, you brain changes its focus. And when you get back to the previous task, the brain has to focus again. Back and forth is goes from one thing to another. Wasting precious time that would be better used on completing a task before moving to the next.

Those seconds and minutes are wasted because you lost focus on the chore at hand to switch to another one. In your day these minutes add up. Our time is precious and not to be wasted.

Multitasking comes from within you. No outside event or pressure brings multitasking on you. It is your personal belief that you will be able to do more then one thing at a time and completing everything. When the end of the day arrives, you fall short of everything you set out to conclude. Trying to complete a multitude of thing at the same time will result in not completing anything.

How do you get your mindset off of this belief? Here are 4 things I recommend you start doing immediately.

Ditch your ToDo list.

A ToDo list is a container where you place all your ideas. It’s not a list you take out in the morning and have a crack at it. Trying to complete the most you can. ToDo lists have a tendency to snowball into a huge beast. And just looking at it, is discouraging. Instead do the following.

Block time in your calendar for the important tasks.

When you start your day, have a plan. Don’t just take that list and run, plan out your day in advance. You get up in the morning and your time is already laid out. Schedule in your calendar the tasks you must finalize that day. Block out the required time to complete each of them. First, it will put in perspective the available time you have at your disposal. Second, it will force you to chose the tasks related directly to your goals. Everything else is not important.

Your are the boss of your time.

Tackle one task at a time. Don’t get distracted by anything. Shut off your phone. Close the door of your office. Hang a do not disturb sign on your door. If you can’t do this, find a place away from all distractions.

Consider the time you block as a meeting you scheduled with yourself. Would you start looking at your email, social media or answer your phone in the middle of a planned meeting with a coworker, your boss or a client? No you wouldn’t. Then why would you do this to yourself? Respect the meetings you plan with yourself.

Complete one task at a time.

Do not start, switch or move to another assignment before you finish the one at hand. If you complete it in less time that you block, move on to the next in your calendar. Don’t move to a task that isn’t planned until everything in your calendar has been completed. Then and only then, you move your focus to a new task not scheduled.

These recommendations will be the cornerstone of your success. I promise you will start completing more then you ever have before. All goals you set for yourself will suddenly become achievable. Success will constantly be knocking at your door.

What are you waiting for? STOP MULTITASKING!