Multitasking Kills Your Productivity? You Must Master State Management.

Have you had this situation? You are focused on solving some sort of problem and then  - boom - telephone rings. You pick up the phone (big mistake!) and hear answer machine running some sort of marketing campaign….

by NathanFromDeVryEET

The focus is lost. The solution you were THAT close is now THIS far and you need to start it over… ARGGHHHH!

Have you?

Interruptions are fact of life. You cannot avoid it completely. Then how do you get back to your work after the interruption? How do you protect your productivity from losing time and getting back on speed when switching back and forth?

In software engineering it is called Context Switching and State Management. The system with better State Management performs better (faster and more reliable).

Can I apply State Management to my personal performance? My answer is “Yes”. Here is my technique.

Manage State With Outlook 2007

Microsoft Outlook 2007 is my choice for managing my state. I am a consultant and I work on

multiple projects. Projects that run concurrently. Some projects run continuously, some get drained and then get back to life on and off. I need the ability to get on speed no matter what - either the project is fresh or stale. I need to hit the ground running. Always. To do so I follow these simple rules:

• Keep my inbox clean. This rule helps me reduce time on scanning my inbox again and again for action items.
  • Keep Your Inbox Clean , Stay Focused And Productive – My 4 Simple Rules 
• Categorize each action item. This rule helps batch relevant related action items. It helps reduce context switching and stay focused on specific topic.
  • Define Your Life projects - Design And Implementation
  • The Fast And The Peaceful
• Stop using the mouse. This rule helps me get more from my hands. Mouse must be moved in order to get to the specific area. My hands are always on the keyboard. No time is wasted on moving. Also, when using the mouse my eyes are involved. When using keyboard only I can type without help from my eyes. Eyes can be focused on something else in parallel to typing. By the way, parallel computing is one of the biggest promises of today’s computer performance improvement.
  • Email Processing On Steroids – Use Built In Shortcuts And Set Up Your Own

All these rules are designed to spend less effort on finding the relevant action items.

“The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be. “ - Bruce Lee

Self Test

• Can you list your current projects fast? What’s the overall number of the project?
• Can you tell me where you are at in each project?
• Can you tell me what’s next in each project?