Multitasking Is A Myth and It’s Killing Your Progress

More tasks.

Longer lists.

More and longer hours.

But what are you achieving from doing all this?

Juggling more work on your plate than you can manage?

Frantically jumping from one task to another?

Putting in more hours for little to no progress?

In a time when attention spans are getting shorter and people struggle to sit through 45-minute episodes, multitasking is a clever way to avoid the real issue:

A lack of focus.

But when you look at the results of all this multitasking, the reality is clear.

Multitasking compounded with poor focus isn’t getting you the results you want. And it’s not the way to go about your work.

If you truly want to get more results, we need to reverse what you’ve believed for a long time — that doing more is the key.

The key is really in doing less.

When I was in my final year of university, I was trying to balance my business and academics.

My plate was full of work and the work was constantly being piled on.

And trying to balance the two, I was making very little progress.

My business ended up taking a hit as I wasn’t sending enough outreach, thus fewer sales calls were coming in and less money.

Something needed to change and my solution?

Do more of EVERYTHING.

And this was the turning point for me because instead of getting more results, I was getting less.

I couldn’t understand how doing more was leading to fewer results because isn't multitasking supposed to lead to more?

The Multitasking Trap

Like many others, I believed that doing multiple tasks at the same time would save me time and allow me to get more done. It’s baked into society’s desire for efficiency and having more. Society glorifies multitasking and it’s worse in the entrepreneurship space.

Entrepreneurs, especially founders, are the OG generalists. Wearing multiple hands and doing so many things all at once.

However, doing everything at once always seemed to lead to little or no results.

Why is that?

Studies have shown that when you multitask, your performance slows and your focus decreases leading to more mistakes, less progress and increased stress.

This decrease in focus and performance ends up wasting your time rather than saving it.

And I saw this in my own life as well:

1. Increased Mistakes: I was frequently making mistakes from switching tasks and this negatively affected client work and academic work. Frequent task switching leads to errors, especially in complex tasks.

2. Mental Fatigue: I was tired a lot from the constant task switching. I realised that I was tiring my brain out faster and increasing the likelihood of burnout.

3. Decreased Creativity: Because I wasn’t diving deep into the tasks I was doing, I wasn’t letting my mind make connections and have novel perspectives. Decreased creativity often leads to shallow work.

4. Illusion of Productivity: Doing a little of everything makes you feel busy and productive, but over time the lack of real progress becomes evident in the long term. This leads to increased feelings of frustration because you’re spending all this time and energy for very little back. Multitasking makes you feel busy, but the lack of real progress becomes evident in the long term.

The hidden and damaging cost of multitasking is that you reach the end of each day feeling like you worked hard but with little to prove for all your hard work.

The reality is that your focus is scattered, the quality of work is diminished and productivity plateaus.

Multitasking makes the time freedom you want to achieve harder to attain. Something just out of reach.

It creates and keeps you in an endless cycle of “busy work” that doesn’t lead to real forward movement.

But this cycle can be broken.

Shift from Multitasking to Single-Tasking

I soon realised that doing more wasn’t leading to more. And when one approach isn’t working, maybe it’s time to flip it on its end.

So from doing everything at once, I started doing one thing at a time.

And the results came.

Higher Quality Work: When you focus on one task, your brain goes deeper, tapping into more creativity, fewer mistakes and a higher quality of work.

Faster Completion: This went against everything I believed, but single-tasking helped me complete tasks faster. I realised it was because my brain wasn’t expending as much energy switching between multiple tasks. This meant finishing things faster and with less energy.

Increased Clarity: Focusing on one thing lets your brain think clearly and, with clearer thinking you have better action and better results.

Less Stress, More Satisfaction: Single-tasking reduced my anxiety and stress. Committing myself to doing one thing at a time meant I was all in on whatever I was doing. That nagging feeling of “I need to do this and do that” went away. I felt more accomplished because I was actually getting things done.

Single-tasking is a shift from scattered, shallow focus to deep focus.

When you prioritise deep focus, you optimise for efficiency, clarity, creativity and growth.

Single-tasking is a superpower in a world overrun with distractions and attention vampires.

Instead of working long hours, single-tasking allows you to complete your most important work in fewer hours and have time for things that matter to you.

This was a game changer for me because I was still able to grow my business, complete university work and even have time for training and my social life.

Step-by-Step Plan for Single-Tasking

Now that you understand the power of single-tasking, let’s break it down into actionable steps you can use immediately:

1. Choose One High-Impact Task

   Start your day by identifying the 1-3 most important tasks you need to complete. These tasks should move the needle in your business and life, not busy work that leads to no results or progress.

   These are your top priorities.

   If all you do in a day is complete these tasks, you can still end the day feeling proud and accomplished.

2. Time Block for Deep Focus

   Set aside a specific time block (e.g., 60–90 minutes) to work on one task with zero distractions.

   Turn off notifications, close extra tabs, and silence your phone.

   The goal is to immerse yourself fully into the one task.

3. Use the Pomodoro Technique

   If you’re moving from multitasking to single-tasking, you need to strengthen your focus muscle.

   So instead of forcing yourself to work for a full 60 minutes or 90 minutes, use the Pomodoro technique.

   Work in 25-minute focused intervals, followed by a 5-minute break.

   After 4 Pomodoros (100 minutes), you can take a longer 15-30 minute break.

   This structure helps maintain mental freshness while fostering deep work.

   As your focus muscle gets stronger, you can extend your focus intervals.

4. Minimise Task Switching

   Changing any habit doesn’t happen overnight, it applies to this too.

   You might find yourself wanting to fall back into old habits of task-switching.

   It will happen, but the key is to be aware when it happens and minimise it.

   During your deep focus session, if other things pop up in your mind, write them down on a piece of paper to tackle later.

   Then during your breaks you can engage and plan when you’ll do them.

5. Evaluate and Reflect

   “What gets measured gets improved.” — Peter Drucker

   After your deep work session, review what you accomplished and assess how focused you were.

   Don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t stay focused for the entire session.

   Remember: you’re building a new habit.

   Over time, single-tasking will become a habit, and you’ll make improvements in quality, focus and speed.

It’s time to implement single-tasking and start making more progress in your business and personal life.

Start with one high-impact task, time-block it, and watch how much more you do in less time.

And give yourself the room to grow and improve.

That’s it for this week.

And thank you for reading.

— Shana