One of the most common productivity tips is to NOT multitask.
I understand the reasoning behind it.
I don’t care.
I multitask anyway… in specific situations and it makes my life better, easier, and FAR MORE PRODUCTIVE.
I’m sure the productivity gurus out there will take me to the task. Maybe they’ll even suggest I’m being irresponsible writing this email.
However, I often go against conventional wisdom because it works.
If I wanted to be average, I’d follow conventional wisdom.
That’s not to say the conventional wisdom is always wrong. Sometimes it’s right.
What I’m suggesting is don’t take it at face value.
Test it for yourself.
I do and sometimes my way is better.
Back to multitasking.
I don’t always multitask, but sometimes I do for the better.
It depends on what I’m doing.
For example, when I write, I don’t multitask. I just write.
Hang on, gotta go check email and Google Analytics. Be right back.
Haha, kidding.
When do I multitask?
I multitask when faced with tedious, repetitive tasks.
I know I should just put my head down and bang them out, but that’s not me. I won’t finish them. In fact, I often won’t start them if faced with nothing but tediousness for one hour.
So what I do is intersperse tedious tasks throughout the day with creative tasks such as outlining articles or even writing.
In this case, I may multitask with writing, but in this instance, writing is serving as an enjoyable outlet to get through the monotony of tediousness.
I think an example is in order. I’ll use the very situation that inspired this email.
As I write this email, I’m dealing with two extraordinarily tedious tasks. They are:
- Posting Facebook posts, and
- Installing and setting up a plugin for a specific task on all my niche sites.
As an aside, one super-duper lousy aspect of owning multiple sites is deploying plugins on them all. It’s a real drag.
You might be thinking “why don’t you just have a VA do all that stuff?”
Normally I would but the FB posts are experiments so I want to do them.
The plugin setup requires some nuanced settings that are different for each site so again, it falls to me.
Okay, so I’m scheduling out 40 Facebook posts or so and installing a plugin on 17 websites.
If I buckled down and banged each one out, the two tasks would take maybe 1.5 hours tops. More likely one hour.
Because I’m multi-tasking, I’m doing it over the course of 5 hours.
In fact, I’m multitasking it with a very enjoyable project which is creating a 6-month timeline checklist for how I plan, launch and grow niche sites. This handy resource will be added to the Fat Stacks Bundle of courses.
I do a tedious task such as the post to Facebook, then work on my Fat Stacks bundle cheat sheet for a bit. Then I do one plugin install, return it to my cheat sheet. On and on.
It may not be the most efficient approach, but everything actually gets done.
Which is the point.
I actually will get both tedious tasks done today along with other tasks such as the helpful timeline checklist for Bundle members.
If I were staring down the barrel of 40 FB posts all in one shot, I’d probably put it off… indefinitely. Same with a plugin install on 17 sites.
That’s a worst-case scenario.
That’s my case for multitasking.
While it may buck the norm, at least I get stuff done.
Jon Dykstra is a six figure niche site creator with 10+ years of experience. His willingness to openly share his wins and losses in the email newsletter he publishes has made him a go-to source of guidance and motivation for many. His popular “Niche site profits” course has helped thousands follow his footsteps in creating simple niche sites that earn big.
