Most people accept that you’re bound to lose effectiveness when answering e-mail and listening in a meeting while walking your dog. When your boss asks for your input and you don’t hear it or you don’t step on something not so pleasant because you don’t have something so pleasant or you step on something so pleasant because you don’t know your dog is doing his business in front of you.
The limitations of multiplexes present themselves clearly.
But as a time management coach, I’ve noticed that trying to do very little things at once can trip you up. I also find that people become less effective when they try to do too much at once – what I like to call “macrotasking”.
MacroTasking can look like fixing your kitchen and having a baby while you switch jobs. Or it might look like redesigning your company’s website while launching a podcast and hiring for multiple key management positions.
It is technically possible to do more than one big project. But macrotasking can leave you paralyzed because you’re not sure where to start. Even if you start, you may end up with a lot of projects that take too long because you don’t have the focus to complete them.
If you’re outdoing yourself in all of your outdoor endeavors, personally and professionally, here are three steps to moving forward more effectively and efficiently.
Limit your startup
The first key to effective macrotasking is limiting how many new projects you start at once. If you have something really big, like a renovation or launching a new product, avoid starting other big projects at the same time.
The initial phase of any project has a high start-up cost to complete the research, nerve what is needed, have the right team in place and make strategic decisions in the direction. Most people can only do this effectively in one or two key areas.
Once the initial direction is set, you can potentially delegate work in progress, then turn your attention to tackling another major project. But trying to start three or more of these at once can backfire. It can slow you down so you don’t give any project the attention it needs, or it can cause you to make poor decisions because you don’t give yourself the space you need to be thoughtful.
The idea of limiting the number of projects you start, map out your projects in the coming quarter. So that you have a place to put your project ideas, you can focus on doing what’s in front of you now that you know when you’ll get to them.
Leave room for execution
The views are amazing. Strategic planning is great. But application is the only thing that really drives results.
If other people are doing most of the projects, macrotasking can work when those projects are in progress. You set a direction, now others are executing and can migrate multiple workflows at the same time.
That being said, you still need to make room in your calendar to view and provide feedback. This can be unblocked by having weekly project meetings or recurring time to look at what’s been sent to you and answer questions.
If you are the primary person responsible for implementation, macrotasking will be more difficult. In my experience as a time management coach, I generally don’t see people who can move through two or three large projects when they are the ones doing the heavy lifting.
If you find yourself in this situation, you need to pace yourself. Each month, identify two or three projects that you can really move forward with and focus on. Then you have to accept that other projects may move more slowly or may have to wait as long as it does for the entire month ahead.
Bring work to close
By following the two tips above, you should be able to consistently bring projects to completion. But one tendency I see in macrotaskers is that they really enjoy getting started, but don’t find it exciting to complete. It can leave them with no more nearly finished projects at the finish line.
If you find yourself in this situation, you may need to make a rule that you can’t start anything new until you’ve thrown away some of the old stuff. Then choose a few closely related projects to get your dedicated attention. Most likely, when you decide to do this, you will have many new ideas to make a point. Resist the urge to start them and instead list them for the coming months.
If you find even with your best intentions to focus on completion, you still don’t quite see projects through, get help. This could be a co-worker with a co-worker in a co-worker with a co-worker session, a co-worker with a co-worker with a partner to hold you accountable, or a co-worker with a partner to help out more. There is no need for support that needs support to close projects.
MacroTasking is possible with the right approach. Using these three strategies, you can get a very large project.