Skip to content

Why multitasking is hurting
your project success

Multitasking often seems like a necessary skill, especially since project management is so fast-paced. However, recent studies and real-world experiences have shown that multitasking can severely hinder project success. Instead of boosting productivity, it causes delays and increases stress among team members. Here's why multitasking is detrimental and how you can avoid it.

A digital schedule view for "Mary" showing tasks across three days—Monday, September 2nd to Wednesday, September 4th. Tasks are color-coded and categorized under "XP 2000," "Sustaining Engineering," and "Admin." On Monday, tasks include "Document/Distribute FEA Results" (yellow) and "Submit Next Year’s Budget" (pink). On Tuesday, the tasks are "Define Housing/Faceplate/Cover Interfaces" (yellow) and a repeat of the budget task. Wednesday includes "Shutdown RM400 Line and Restart RD350" (orange). Time allocations and icons indicate time blocks and progress.
A woman with a thoughtful expression looks at a laptop screen. Behind her are four color-coded task labels: "Document/Distribute FEA Results" (yellow), "Shutdown RM400 Line and Restart RD350" (orange), "Submit Next Year's Budget" (pink), and "Define Housing/Faceplate/Cover Interfaces" (yellow). Two pie chart graphics float near her, representing task tracking or time management.

  • What are the effects of multitasking?

    Every time you switch tasks it adds unproductive time to your work. If everyone does this a few times per day, the total amount of work will expand and cause the end date of everything to move. And if you understand the non-linear impact of resource loading, that end-date shift will be considerably longer than just the amount of extra work.

    People don’t like working hard with nothing to show for it, so it causes frustration and leads to burnout.

  • The myth of multitasking efficiency

    Multitasking is frequently touted as a way to maximize efficiency. The idea is that by juggling multiple tasks simultaneously, more work will get done in less time. However, this perception is fundamentally flawed. In reality, multitasking requires constant task-switching, which is both time-consuming and mentally taxing.

  • The cognitive cost of task-switching

    Every time a team member switches tasks, they experience a cognitive shift that disrupts their focus and reduces productivity. Studies have shown that it takes an average of twenty-three minutes to regain full focus after an interruption. This constant shifting not only wastes time but also increases the likelihood of errors, as attention to detail diminishes with each switch.

What causes multitasking?

There can be many reasons a person multitasks:

  • Assigned to multiple projects
  • Project plans are out of date
  • Team members are overloaded
  • Status reports ask for “Percent Complete”

But the root cause is not having clear or correct priorities. So the team members have to guess what to work on and are forced to switch when something else seems more important.

A man wearing glasses and a light blue shirt sits at a desk, looking thoughtfully at a laptop screen. Floating around him are digital task labels: "Layout Prototype III," "Get Quotes Prototype II," and "Incorporate Changes Prototype I," with icons like a pie chart and a red "X," representing task status and workflow management.

How can you prevent multitasking?

Since the root cause of multitasking is incorrect priorities, the solution is the opposite—get
everyone clear and correct priorities, daily. While that might sound easier said than done, it’s
exactly what Playbook was designed to do.

Lean and Agile methods for planning
Decentralized and Rolling Wave Planning use methods from Lean, Agile, and Critical Chain that create an accurate and up-to-date plan. And that information is used to create the My Playbook view that shows the relative priority of every task in every project for every team member. They can choose to do them in any order, but they always have correct priorities across every project, every day.
How much do correct priorities help with predictable end dates?

After analyzing dozens of projects, we came to the surprise discovery that for most projects the largest cause of delay is the accumulation of daily slips. A single day isn't much, but they go unnoticed and can easily account for more than half of the overall delay on a project.

Correct priorities prevent these daily slips and can reduce project durations by 30-50% alone.

Interested in eliminating multitasking and achieving predictable end dates?

See how the My Playbook view gives everyone correct priorities so they can stop multitasking by choosing the most important task to work on each day.

 

Schedule a call Watch demo