From the course: Time Management Tips

What to do when someone is multitasking on you

From the course: Time Management Tips

Start my 1-month free trial

What to do when someone is multitasking on you

“

- If you've been through my time management fundamentals course or read my books, you'll know I firmly believe that multitasking is one of the biggest thieves of time in any day. It causes delays. It leads to more mistakes. It increases your stress levels, and when you do it to human beings, it communicates to them that they're unimportant. Hopefully, if you're watching this, you already believe in this and try to reduce multitasking in your day. But what do you do when someone else is multitasking on you. You're trying to have an important conversation with them and they're playing with their phone, or they're trying to answer their email, shuffle through their papers or some other task. How do you do handle that? First, make sure you are setting a positive example. You're not going to make much of an impact on someone else's multitasking behavior if you do the same thing to them. In fact, I would emphasize that you turn off electronic devices and set them aside when that person is talking to you. They will notice this because, unfortunately, it has become normal behavior for people to multitask, despite its negative impact. Next, when you're talking to someone and they're multitasking on you, stop. Stop talking. Stop trying to do anything. Just wait. You don't need to say put down your phone and pay attention to me. Just stop. There may be a lag time of a few seconds. Then they're going to realize nothing else is happening other than them playing with their phone. At first, they might say, no, go ahead. In this case, my response would be, no, it seems like you're doing something that's really important. I would say that not with any sarcasm, but with a genuine sense of respect for the other person. Then I would wait. Then one of two things is probably going to happen. First, they might say, no, I'm sorry, I'll pay attention to you, and they'll put away their device, or they might say, you know what, you're right, I'm distracted, I have to take care of this right now. Here, you could say, great, when is a better time for us to talk? And then set up an appointment. Even if that appointment is five minutes from now, you will both be focused on each other because of the commitment you've made. It also wouldn't hurt to have a team training about the impact of workplace multitasking and the importance of focusing on people. If you need some training material for that discussion, check out my video, Focusing on the Person in this Course. Will these tips change behavior immediately? No, but with patient repetition over time, you can change the culture to one that is more focused on human beings.

Contents