|
Western Regional Children’s Advocacy Center (WRCAC) is committed to helping Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) staff and multidisciplinary team (MDT) members find ways to strengthen their resiliency and focus on their vision and goals. However, as we all know, it is sometimes hard to stay focused on just one goal or task at a time. This Roundup issue looks at how multitasking may impact us in the field and provides some tips for creating space to focus and reduce the sense of overwhelm that can lead to burnout. Finding ways to reduce stress and burnout is essential to sustain the workforce of CACs and our partner organizations. We encourage you to share this information with your colleagues and team members.
For those of us who have had the experience of working at a CAC or in the child welfare field, we know what it is like to have to multitask or “wear many hats” as we often say. In fact, some of us have quite a collection of hats. It is rare that we get to just focus on one project or one case at a time. It simply is not a luxury many of us believe we have since resources and staffing are tight. However, what we are learning is that multitasking tends to cut down on our productivity and our ability to effectively deal with stress, which reduces our resiliency. In fact, according to Madore and Wagner (2019), we do not multitask or work on two or more tasks simultaneously despite believing we do. According to research, over 97% of the population does not have the ability to multitask and are not “supertaskers”, defined as those very few who can process and work on more than one thing at a time (Watson & Strayer, 2010). Instead, for most of us, our brains switch from task to task (Madore & Wagner, 2019).
The mere fact of working on multiple tasks at a time causes our brains to experience “switching costs” (Strobach et al., 2018). These switching costs occur as we move between tasks. This means that we use more time and mental energy to refocus on different tasks which often results in taking more time to complete each individual task. As a result, productivity goes down (Madore & Wagner, 2019).
Multitasking can also lead to a decline in the quality of the work that we produce (Madore & Wagner, 2019). Dividing our focus makes it challenging to give our best to any given project as it is more likely that details will be missed or mistakes will be made. Research tells us that we are 40% less effective when we are switching tasks (American Psychological Association, 2006). Switching tasks can also take a toll on other things in our lives as we experience less ability to focus on one thing at a time. For instance, our personal and professional relationships may be impacted as we struggle to focus on conversations with friends, family members, colleagues, and peers.
Multitasking puts more stress on our brains, which leads to feelings of overwhelm. The brain can only handle so much information at one time. When the brain is overwhelmed with multiple tasks and constantly switching between tasks, it can trigger a stress response (Madore & Wagner, 2019). This stress impacts your physical and mental health which can contribute to anxiety and burnout on top of the stress we already experience working in this field.
Avoiding multitasking is not always easy. As we each experience more demands on our time in both our personal and professional lives, it often takes intentional practice to give ourselves space to focus. Here are some things you can try to help train your mind to focus on one task at a time.
| 
