Why multitasking is sabotaging your career—and how to stop

The strategy that changed everything for me is what I call the No-Stacking Rule. Itâ€s very simple: I donâ€t allow myself to have more than two tasks in progress at any one time. This means that if something is sitting at 30% complete, I have to finish it before I can start something new with no exceptions. Easier said than done though!

It creates a discipline where Iâ€m forced to think carefully about what I start, because once itâ€s on my plate, Iâ€m committed to taking it through to completion. This rule stops me from scattering my attention across multiple half-done jobs and instead drives me to deliver tangible results.

A specific example: I once found myself with six different strategic projects on the go and all moving slowly and none close to completion. It felt overwhelming. When I applied the No-Stacking Rule, I cut everything back and committed to just two projects. I finished the first in three days, the second in the following week, and then moved on to the rest. Within a month, every single project was complete and signed off—something that would have dragged on for months under my old approach (it used to drive my team mad!)

What I learned was that focus compounds. Completing one task gives you momentum and frees up headspace. Before long, youâ€re not drowning in half-finished work. Instead, youâ€re creating real impact.

Remember, multitasking at work is basically professional procrastination in disguise!

Sean McPheat, Founder & CEO, MTD Training

Mental Clarity Outperforms Productivity Hacks

Multitasking is one of the most pervasive myths in modern work. We wear it like a badge of honor, but the science is clear: itâ€s not efficiency—itâ€s cognitive switching. Each time we move between tasks, we lose time and mental energy. Johann Hariâ€s Stolen Focus cites research showing that it can take over 20 minutes to regain full focus after switching. Multiply that across a workday, and the cost to performance, well-being, and creativity is enormous.

In our peak performance coaching work, we see this daily. Leaders describe being “always on,†yet never feeling ahead. The problem isnâ€t their workload — itâ€s their state of mind. When your mind is cluttered with competing thoughts, tasks, and worries, youâ€re not multitasking; youâ€re fragmenting your attention.

The most effective strategy Iâ€ve found to maintain focus isnâ€t time blocking or task batching—itâ€s understanding how your mind actually works. Not emotional intelligence, not techniques, but insight. Once people grasp that their mental experience is created from the inside out—not by external pressure or circumstance—they stop trying to control everything outside them and start working from clarity inside them.

In practice, that means when I feel overloaded, I donâ€t reach for productivity hacks. I pause. I notice that my racing thoughts, not my inbox, are creating the sense of pressure. As soon as I see that clearly, my mind quiets, and focus returns naturally. This understanding isnâ€t about managing stress—it dissolves it.

We apply the same principle in our programs. One pharmaceutical client saw dramatic results: 93% of participants reported reduced stress and overwhelm and 88% improved decision-making after learning this inside-out model of performance. When people stop fighting their thoughts and start working with a clear mind, productivity, creativity, and engagement follow—without the burnout.

The takeaway? You canâ€t out-plan an overactive mind. Productivity doesnâ€t come from doing more; it comes from thinking less. The real advantage in the modern workplace isnâ€t multitasking—itâ€s mental clarity.

Kay Tear, Managing Director, Business Reimagined Ltd

Ruthless Prioritization Delivers Higher ROI Results

Multitasking harms productivity because it drains both a teamâ€s capacity and capability. When too many priorities pile up, velocity slows, quality drops, and burnout sets in—even though it looks like everything is moving forward. Skills are stretched thin, people work on tasks that arenâ€t the best use of their talent, and morale suffers as wins become harder to see.

My most effective strategy is ruthless prioritization—doing less to achieve more. It starts with clarity: defining what problem weâ€re solving and asking, “Can the current team deliver this?†before adding anything new. In one case, we cut or paused 35% of active projects, freeing up capacity and capability for higher-ROI initiatives. As a result, over two fiscal periods, ROI across the portfolio of efforts rose by 20%, two-thirds of projects were delivered months ahead of schedule, and morale improved as the team delivered meaningful outcomes, which led to higher talent retention levels.

Rohit Bassi, Founder & CEO, People Quotient

GTD Method Transforms Focus Not Time

Multitasking harms productivity because it divides our attention and forces the brain to rapidly switch between tasks, a process that has been proven to drain mental energy, increase stress, and reduce the quality of our thinking. I learned this firsthand when I realized I was spending hours each year simply rewriting to-do lists, reacting to whatever was loudest or latest, and feeling perpetually busy, but not always productive.

The strategy that transformed my focus was implementing the Getting Things Done® (GTD) methodology, which shifts the goal from time management to focus management. GTD helps externalize thoughts and commitments so the mind is free to think clearly rather than constantly remember.

One of the most effective habits I adopted was the “mind sweep,†taking a few minutes to capture everything that has my attention on paper and then clarifying the next specific action for each item. By organizing these actions into trusted categories (“calls,†“emails,†“projects,†etc.), I eliminated the clutter in my head and could focus on one meaningful thing at a time.

The impact has been remarkable: I sleep better, my energy is higher, and I no longer react to crises. I respond with clarity, and throughout the years, my teams have also adopted this practice, and the result is a game changer. The difference was night and day. Those of us who drank the GTD Kool-Aid and went through the training stopped spinning in circles, made decisions faster, and stayed accountable to what we said we would do.

In a nutshell, multitasking scatters attention; having a focused and reliable system restores it. When we clear the noise and stop trying to hold things in our minds, overwhelm dissipates and creativity and strategy emerge.

Judy Goldberg, Founder, Wondershift

Separate Digital Environments Enhance Mental Focus

We humans are not wired for multitasking. Even if you are sure you are a pro at it, it might be harming your productivity and attention span in the long run. Focusing on too many things at a time increases anxiety levels and reduces your ability to enter deep focus that is crucial for tasks like brainstorming, ideation, planning, or strategy building. Long-term, it simply kills your creativity. 

What I do to protect my focus is separate my digital environments. Itâ€s convenient to have everything in one place, yes, but it ruins my concentration. So, for instance, I keep one browser “sacred†for deep work and research, and another for lighter tasks or entertainment like social media. Over time, the mind starts to associate the tool with the type of work youâ€re doing: when I open my work browser and see only my work tabs and bookmarks, my brain immediately switches into serious mode. It sounds small and maybe even silly, but those mental cues reduce friction and help keep my concentration abilities in shape.

Jan Hendrik Von Ahlen, Managing Director & Co-founder, Career Coach, JobLeads

Multitasking Disrupts Critical Flow States

Multitasking harms workplace productivity, leading to errors that can damage your personal brand. Today, itâ€s commonplace to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously, such as leading a Zoom call, sending a Teams message, and responding to an email. These actions make us appear “busy,†but beneath the busyness are poorly thought-out arguments and disengaged employees, resulting in lower engagement and longer cycle times.

A July 2024 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that multitasking disrupts “flow states†(deep immersion) by 40%, leading to reduced task satisfaction and 15–25% more errors in complex tasks like report writing.

To counter this, my personal strategy to maintain focus is straightforward but effective: when working on critical strategic imperatives for the business, I close my Teams chat and email and silence my personal phone. By doing so, Iâ€ve gained the ability to concentrate, which fosters more ideas and clearer thinking.

Andrew Lee, HR Director, Raytheon

Multitask With Intention Through Priority Management

Multitasking isnâ€t the villain. Itâ€s the open-ended projects and shifting urgencies that eat up more time than they deserve. I always go back to Stephen Coveyâ€s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and his time management matrix. Four quadrants: urgent and important, not urgent but important, urgent but not important, and not urgent and not important. The trap? We confuse urgency with importance, so our days get stuffed with urgent-but-not-important tasks that steal time from the real priorities. And the most dangerous ones? The important but not urgent tasks we push off until they explode into fire drills.

We build AI phone services for restaurants, and a big part of our work involves adapting to telecom regulations. Itâ€s critical but rarely urgent. Deadlines can be months away, the scope is fuzzy, but itâ€s the kind of effort that canâ€t get shoved aside. Ignore it for too long and suddenly youâ€re headed towards serious downtime and messaging issues. Meanwhile, urgent and important efforts like sales pushes and marketing launches keep knocking at the door.

The trick is not to avoid multitasking, but to do it with intention. That starts with clearly defining where each effort sits in terms of importance and urgency. Then you build a process around it with cross-functional ownership, delegation to the right people, and everything logged in a centralized project tool. Not every project moves in a straight line, and as blockers pop up, you shift focus to the next priority. Thatâ€s what effective multitasking looks like, i.e., knowing whatâ€s on your plate, when to tackle it, and who owns what.

Back to telecom as an example. We know exactly who our internal expert is, and while they wear multiple hats, theyâ€re crystal clear on their ownership and priorities. That way they can balance their time across critical projects without things slipping through the cracks. Week to week, priorities will change. The key is to stay flexible but organized. When everythingâ€s reviewed, documented, and assigned, you donâ€t lose track and you stop mistaking “urgent†for “important.â€

Zeel Jadia, CEO, ReachifyAI

Creative Immersion Days Protect Quality Work

In creative work, multitasking dilutes the quality of ideas. Concepts need space to breathe when youâ€re building a brandâ€s identity or reimagining a clientâ€s marketing strategy. If youâ€re bouncing between logo sketches and a website build, neither will get the full depth of creative exploration each deserves. 

One way I make sure that focus is protected is by structuring our projects into creative immersion days. So instead of spreading a designer thin across five clients in a single day, we dedicate extended time to just one client. The result was not only stronger design work but also faster approvals because the concepts reflected a deeper understanding of the brand.

Adrienne Folse, Founder, Design the Planet

Time Blocking Transforms Task Completion Quality

Multitasking has become normal, even expected, in many workplaces.

You might be hired as a social media manager but soon find yourself also doing graphic design, copywriting, and more. When we try to do too much at once, even if it feels “normal,†the work suffers.

The biggest issue I see with multitasking is that itâ€s easy to miss things.

You overlook details, rush, and hop between tasks without the mental space to go deep.

Youâ€re checking notifications, hearing open office chatter, and prepping for the next meeting all while trying to produce high-quality work. Thatâ€s not a recipe for excellence.

And thatâ€s what we should be aiming for: work thatâ€s thoughtful, well-crafted, and drives results.

One strategy that helps me (and my team) stay focused is time blocking.

We block specific times on our calendars for high-impact tasks and honor those blocks like meetings.

As a founder, I now schedule certain days just for meetings and leave other days free for deep work. That way, Iâ€m not bouncing between strategy calls and writing copy within the same hour. And itâ€s made a big difference.

Instead of dragging one task across three days in 30-minute chunks, I now get it done mostly in one sitting. I stay in flow. The work is better and the stress is lower.

It may require a lot of thought and adjustments to implement but if more teams, whether they are corporate, startup, or small businesses, made space for focus like this, I think weâ€d all see better outcomes.

Remi Roy Osi, Founder, PodGround

Efficient Processes Master Multiple Tasks Successfully

Multitasking can harm workplace productivity when it focuses on quantity over quality. In the rush of “getting things done,†you may compromise on quality by not giving each task enough thought, time, or attention.

The best way to stay focused is by clearly understanding and setting priorities, based on business objectives, revenue potential, impact, and other factors that are important to you or your organization.

For me, the trifecta of maintaining an efficient process, staying organized, and keeping a repository of templates has been an effective strategy in mastering multitasking and delivering high-quality results. There are huge time-saving benefits that lead to more efficient use of time to accomplish multiple tasks without compromising on quality.

Efficient processes: When managing multiple projects, you need to have a solid workflow for creation, approval, execution, and optimization. In my experience, this has fueled better alignment, communication, and collaboration between teams, while speeding up the process, overcoming obstacles, and leading to higher output. It also reduced our campaign launch times from more than a week to two days.

Staying organized: I maintained a central folder system that gave the team quick access to all documentation and resources. Instead of wasting time searching through multiple channels or asking peers, they were able to find the information they needed in one or two clicks and focus on the task at hand. It also created a central space where teams could access everything from guides and briefing documents to assets and reports in the same place for easier decision-making.

Templates: Hours were being wasted as stakeholders developed briefs from scratch, causing delays in campaign executions and losing the company money. I then created templates of briefing documents that stakeholders could easily complete through fill-in-the-blank options, drop-down menus, and other features. What would usually take more than 30 minutes to an hour to create ended up taking less than 15 minutes.

Sidra Tariq, Owner, Curio Solutions Hub