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I'm all for multitasking if that gets the job done, especially if that works for you, but most of the time taking things one task at a time will actually be more beneficial and productive for you.  

Multi-tasking is great in the kitchen when you are trying to time the chicken to be ready at the same time as the potatoes. But do not assume it is a great way to manage a workday. 

-Joanne Tombrakos, writer 

I think that I actually accomplish less when I multitask. In the moment it feels like I am getting a lot done, but when I look back at how long it actually took me to complete each task, I realize that it probably would have taken me less time to just complete one task at a time. 

When we think we’re multitasking we’re actually multiswitching. That is what the brain is very good at doing – quickly diverting its attention from one place to the next. We think we’re being productive. We are, indeed, being busy. But in reality we’re simply giving ourselves extra work.

 -Michael Harris, writer  

I feel pretty scatterbrained when I am shifting from one thing to another and not completing things as I go. I realize as I'm doing it that I am actually doing more work, and it's causing me to feel more overwhelmed than if I just literally stopped and completed one thing at a time.

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I think multitasking, for me, is often the inability to concentrate and see one task through. So, instead of finishing something I am struggling with and getting it done, I lose patience and interest and jump to the next thing, labeling it "multitasking."

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The Russian Proverb of chasing two rabbits and catching neither one is really quite true as a metaphor for multitasking. If you chase one rabbit at a time, you may catch one or both, but if you chase them at the same time, you will catch neither. 

To do two things at once is to do neither.

-Publilius Syrus.

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Even as I was typing this post, I was struggling to stay focused on it and get it done, and not jump to something else in the middle of it. But instead I am focusing to get this done, then I will move on to the next thing. I am really going to try and focus on one task at a time. That's a much less-overwhelming way for me to view the world -- one thing at a time, one step at a time.

What about you, do you like to do one thing at a time or multitask?

Blessings!