Milwaukee Business Daily

How do you remain calm and focused when multi tasking?

I have been having to multi task a lot at work. It sometimes becomes overwhelming. What helps you calm down and focus when you have three or four things going on at once at work?

Public Comments

1. it cums easy to any normal person
2. Really the only thing I do when I have to multitask is take a couple deep breaths in-between doing things, or if I can't take a break, I'll try to remember to take a deep breath while I'm doing it. I know it doesn't work for everyone, but deep breathing is relaxing to me...
3. just breath, if you over think it you will psych yourself out. just take on one task at a time. work efficiently and towards a goal. when you are done you'll feel relieved, accomplished, and not as tired as when you freak out.
4. Usually. Unless I have some moron manager breathing down my neck to beat impossible deadlines they agreed to without knowing what was involved in making things happen.
5. Cultivating good breathing can help a lot. The book is "The Relaxation Response," from a used bookstore or fetchbook.info. Another way is Divide and Conquer by "burning paper." Put each task on a separate sheet of paper, with columns for time, objective, means, contacts, and results. Log into each column as matters develop. Sound dumb? Break things into manageable parts and you can track your progress; everything else is chaos. Similarly, while you wait for one reply you can work on others with no distractions and can stop interrupting one task with obsessions over another. Paper is cheap; USE IT. Next, create a "pursuit pad"--nobody will do a damn thing for you unless you can both pursue and focus. On a legal pad, number each page with a date of the month. If it's the 2nd and nobody will be around until the 16th, put it down on the latter date and forget about it so it won't distract you. When you turn to that page you'll know what you need to do. I designed stores and bossed construction for 15 years, and all I can tell you is that it WORKS.