A Conversation in the Kitchen: Tsk, Tsk, So Many Tasks!
Yesterday morning, my husband was in the kitchen emptying the dishwasher. When I walked in he said, “I have to hurry – I have a zoom meeting in a few minutes.” I replied, “Then why are you emptying the dishwasher? That can wait; that’s why you group tasks.” He replied, “I’m trying to do my part. See, I’m emptying the dishwasher while I’m boiling water for tea . . .” To which I retorted, “that’s not task grouping that’s multitasking, and that’s active multitasking as opposed to passive multitasking.”
Task Grouping. Active Multitasking. Passive Multitasking. Yes, dear readers, this week’s topic comes from a Conversation in the Kitchen, once again demonstrating that writers get most of their ideas from their own life.
Tasks are those necessary steps we take to accomplish our goals. Task management is important to every area of an organization, and it may be seen as an area mostly managed by Operations as that is the segment of the organization that keeps things running for everyone, and hopefully running smoothly.
There are many online tools and apps for managing tasks and you may use one or several of them as these are built into a lot of the systems we use for technology infrastructure. It’s included in Google, Microsoft 365, and Yahoo offers tools like Asana. That is the how, but what is the what?
What?
I’m bringing us back to my Kitchen Epiphany which is why I’m writing this article.
Task Grouping: the identification and grouping of tasks that are similar and related to an area. Example: Emptying the dishwasher, putting the dirty dishes into it, and emptying the dish rack of items that were air drying. Grouping all the dish related tasks saves time and effort through creating focus.
Passive Multitasking: This is when you set passive actions in motion that don’t need focused attention, while you concentrate on something that does need your focus. Example: Starting a load of laundry in the washing machine (which you can leave to run) while you are taking your dog for a walk. In passive multitasking, you can set things in motion in the background so that you can focus on things that need your active participation. This can be a good approach to multiple tasks as it can be a timesaver.
Active Multitasking: This is doing several things at the same time that require your attention, which means you likely are not able to focus on them well because you are distracted by all the things you are trying to do. This means none of them is done well, like trying to text and drive, or write a report while on a conference call. In both these examples, things can go terribly wrong terribly fast. You also don’t save time because you will likely have to go back and do one of the things again or stop and ask for directions when you get lost. And if you were wondering, yes, there is a special place in hell for active multitaskers.
To support your success at work and at home, assess your approach, organize the tasks by group, and avoid active multitasking. Thinking about how we manage our tasks from this broader perspective can help us accomplish more and get us to a quality outcome.
