Multi-tasking isn’t bad. There are times when it is very important to do so. But then, there are some instances, especially when it comes to business, when multi-tasking should be set aside. When running a business, all your attention should be focused only be on one thing.

It’s a fact that a successful entrepreneur doesn’t multi-task.

Definitions first. Multi-tasking is defined as juggling two or more tasks at the same time in an attempt to finish as many tasks as you can in the least amount of time. Simply put, it is man’s ability to perform more than one activity at the same time.

Here’s an example of multitasking. While you’re on your computer writing an e-mail, you could be taking a phone call with your headset, sipping coffee, and at the same time signaling a visitor to take a seat. That’s a lot of tasks done in one time!

In the short-term, multi-tasking is okay, as long as what you’re doing is fairly routine and technically simple. These things are so complex that an irregularity in performing here or there will severely damage the whole process. This is called „continuous partial attention“, and it is okay for those everyday, mundane situations. However, the life of a successful entrepreneur, especially when it comes to business, is anything but mundane.

What a successful entrepreneur needs is full concentration. Just imagine yourself talking with a customer. It wouldn’t be nice on their part if you were talking to them and at the same time doing something else like checking your phone, or reading an e-mail.

The Switching Cost – the Cost of Switching from One Task to Another

Experimental psychologists have long been studying the effect of multi-tasking on productivity. Numerous studies have shown that there is a „switching cost“ every time you change from one task to another. This means that you need as much as four minutes to go back to maximum productivity on a task after an interruption. Now, if you’re trying to juggle four tasks, you lose as much as sixteen minutes in one cycle of task-switching alone. Such a waste of time, huh?

Given such a piece of information, would you still opt to multi-task? True, a serious entrepreneur like you has a lot of things on your plate. You sometimes wish you have more than 24 hours in a day.

What any successful entrepreneur should do, however, is finish one task at a time. On the average, you may have the same result as compared to doing portions of each task. The benefit comes from the non-quantifiable things that you get out of completing tasks one at a time. You get less stressed simply because you’ll have one frame of thought at a time. As a result, as you shred off tasks one by one, you have less and less things to think about. And this, perhaps, is the secret of success for any serious entrepreneur!