In usual job environment, you are probably required to jiggle couple of tasks or even several projects at once. In this situation, people tend to be unfocused and spread the energy into different tasks at one time. By using your fastest speed to finish those tasks and move on, you seems like productive on completing a task, but in reality it maybe not. Jeffrey Phillips stressed that it is important to focus one task at a time to be real productive, rush and complete the task with low quality is definitely not productive, as yourself or someone else may need to clean up your messes later:
… I know it’s impossible to do only one thing every day, but as much as possible focus on just one task at a time, and do as much of that task as you can. Some tasks – like writing a position paper or developing an especially complex financial analysis – will take several days, and by their nature require you to dive into the work and then leave the work unfinished. It is mentally taxing to work on a spreadsheet 8 or 9 hours a day. But my recommendation is still – do as much as you can, as long as you can, focused on one task.
How? Turn off the cell phone, close the door, turn off the email notification sounds on the PC. Yes, you’ll run into opposition from some that you work with, especially those who want you to come put out their fires. However, your work product will improve, you’ll generate better quality work, and you’ll get your stuff done more effectively and efficiently…
One thing at a time – [Thinking Faster]
