There’s a lot of talk these days around the idea of single-tasking.

Multi-tasking and working on a whole lot at once is distracting. And if you’re not careful, your margin of error will increase exponentially.

That’s why a lot business bloggers have been focusing on single-tasking. Giving a single task your full undivided attention makes it much more likely for you to finish it faster and more efficiently. Additionally, working on your tasks sequentially instead of simultaneously reduces your risk of error and helps you get the job done.

There are certainly a lot of merits to taking up one task at a time. But I don’t believe that you should single-task merely out of principle when multi-tasking can help you move things around faster. I am a big proponent of multi-tasking (on certain projects) and there’s a time and place for using this strategy. And in this post I am going to discuss how multi-tasking can do great things to you if you’re a new start-up business.

1. What is Multi-tasking?

Multi-tasking is the ability to cover more than one task simultaneously and to do so efficiently. Notice that I emphasize the efficiency component of the definition because there’s really no benefit to spending more time working on your tasks if you could save time by working on them separately. That’s just a waste of time and multi-tasking in this case is useless.

There is also no benefit to tackling more than one task and produce sub-par results. That also seems to beat the purpose of multi-tasking.

So we’re looking here for a way to use multi-tasking that will give us better and faster results. We have to begin by selectively choosing which tasks and activities are better handled simultaneously?

The best tasks for this exercise are ones that differ in the order of priority and the required degree of concentration.

For example, it’s easy to drive your car and safely reach your destination while listening to an e-book. And you can do such things because listening to an e-book doesn’t interfere with driving in terms of priority or degree of concentration. In other words, you don’t have to switch your attention from your driving to the e-book in a way that increases the risk of successfully performing the former.

On the other hand, you won’t be able to write an article and speak on the phone simultaneously (if the two have the same order of priority to you). You will lose time and attention from writing, and you will lose what the other person is trying to tell you on the phone. Both tasks compete for your attention and you will take more time to complete both projects and your results will suffer accordingly.

As you can see, you have to pick tasks that don’t both compete for your attention in a zero-sum way. In fact, one of the tasks you pick must have a significantly lower priority than the other task. For example, eat your lunch while reading the paper or an article or your emails. Organize your desk or your files while speaking with your colleagues at work. Listen to a speech or take an information course and skim your homework or article and see how if you can do that, although that takes some training to do.

2. Training Yourself

It’s natural for me to multi-task, but I didn’t set out to become a multi-tasker.

I started listening to audio programs because I enjoyed them and I used that as a way for me to get started on writing and working. Over time, doing these two things together became an easy and natural thing for me to do.

If you have a need to become a multi-tasker, then one of the tasks you want to group together must be very familiar to you. You must be able to do it almost automatically and without having to exert a lot of effort. What are you comfortable with doing that it takes little to no conscious effort on your part to do? Identify these tasks and experiment with pairing this task with another one and see how it goes. It’s fun.

These days I never write or work without listening to an information course or a lecture. I get more than %50 of the information I hear and I am fine with that. I like to listen (and read) things more than once and hearing or reading things a second time is easier to do if you already have had some prior exposure to your subject. In fact, it helps you overcome what I’ve called elsewhere as familiarity deficit. See this post for more.

3. Rapid Toggling

I am not saying here that multi-tasking is a necessary tool for your goals or your business. But if you’re looking for an edge in this competitive industry and you want to maximize your use of your time and resources, then that’s option you might want to consider.

However, this strategy is not ideal for tasks that require a high degree of concentration. If you haven’t drafted a business proposal before or a sales page, then you obviously want to give that work your full attention. This is not the place to multi-task if you’re not well verse in that strategy yet.

So be selective and understand when to use that strategy and when not.

At the same time, you must be aware that when you switch contexts and you “rapidly toggle” your tasks as you jump from one task to another is taxing on your brain. It takes some practice to learn how to multi-task efficiently.

If you’re just beginning, I suggest that you multi-task at lunch time. Eat your lunch and read your emails. Read a book or an article while you’re waiting on your coffee. Listen to audio program while you’re driving. Listen to an information course while you’re trying to write a first draft of an email, article, chapter, etc.

Happy experimenting and wish you all the success with this approach.