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Why tech entrepreneurs should avoid multi-tasking

tired entrepreneur

Jerome Iveson is the founder of Thrive, creators of Team. In this article, he discusses why entrepreneurs need to take a step back.

Our ‘sleep faster’ culture amongst entrepreneurs is damaging our mental and physical health and startups.

Sleep, fail, work faster, harder, longer, and multi-tasking doesn’t benefit anyone. Especially you and your startup.

James Routledge, an entrepreneur, turned VC, turned mental health advocate touched a nerve in the community with a blog, followed by an article in The Guardian.

He opened up about ‘a concoction of stress, depression, anxiety and burnout that just isn’t talked about’.

Time to talk

Behind the ‘poker face,’ early-stage entrepreneurs show the world, too many are struggling with ‘mental battles and the pressure can lead to stress, anxiety and depression’.

One in four in the UK suffer from mental health issues, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that these struggles lie below the surface in a group of people who are fighting for market share, funding, staff, hype, and media attention.

Long hours and workloads and responsibilities that make most graduate jobs look like a walk in the park shouldn’t involve bottling up issues that need discussing.

Refusing to talk about things, especially the ‘dark side to startups, where many are putting their mental health at risk’ isn’t adding value, isn’t contributing to valuations or scaling.

It’s doing the opposite. Founders need more support.

Aspects of startup life that we accept as normal, such as multi-tasking, should be reviewed, revised and whenever possible, banished from how startup teams function.

Draining our energy and mental reserves in an attempt to get more done, to work harder, longer and sleep faster, is pushing too many people in the community towards burnout.

The myth of multitasking

We accept the idea that we should multi-task because everyone does it.

Our brains release dopamine, rewarding us for achieving a small task; answering an email, sending a Tweet, ticking each small item of a to-do list. But at the end the day, at the end of ‘one of those days’, what have you achieved?

Big to-do list items are still sitting, waiting, for your full attention, or half done, seemingly too difficult to finish in one attempt. Email, social media and instant messaging are neural addictions, mental candy, which we eat all too readily.

As MIT neuroscientist, Earl Miller said “when people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost.”

A University of London study found that multitasking causes IQ drops comparable to sleep deprivation or smoking strong marijuana.

Men can drop 15 IQ points, as a result of multi-tasking. The production of cortisol, the stress hormone, also increases when there’s too much going on, which makes us feel exhausted, even early into the working day.

Leaving the inbox alone until you have accomplished something puts you in a much better frame of mind. It puts you in control of your to-do list, instead of external pressures and extra tasks.

Breaking free from multi-tasking

Focus and discipline.

There’s no easy, short-term answer, unfortunately; there never is when breaking free from negative addictions.

That’s how we should view and treat multi-tasking: an unfortunate byproduct of an era when technology has made focusing on a single task more of a challenge than it has ever been in the past.

The first step, with any addiction, is recognising there is a problem.

Single-tasking through the day is better for our productivity, mental health, energy levels, and happiness.

Eating right and getting fit would contribute to mental alertness, energy and consequently, our ability to concentrate and get through big to-do list items that require focus and attention.

We don’t have that to give with dozen browser tabs, email, and social networks pouring noise into our minds.

Give yourself mental, time-based boundaries, and start small.

No email for an hour. Then two hours, then half a day.

Also, given the drop in dopamine, since you won’t get that from multi-tasking, reward yourself for prolonged periods of focus.

Learn to ask for space you need from colleagues and clients to ensure you can get your work done. Over time, single-tasking through a day will feel normal, even in a high-pressure startup environment.

It is also worth recognising the fact that, if you, like many in the community, are feeling the pressure from working in or building a startup, talking about it helps get these issues out in the open.

Talking, making changes and practicing acceptance is the only way out of the dark side.

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