Context Switching

Instead of multi-tasking, I try to think of it as context switching.

When you have many different masks to wear inevitably you have many different contexts to switch throughout the day and I generally have a 13 hour work day from 5am to 6pm. It’s important to schedule reset points throughout the day to recharge and keep your energy levels.

Having themed days is something I learnt from Jack Dorsey. If you have multiple job roles, having specific types of tasks to do on each day of the week helps.

I then write down my top 5 high value (HV) tasks to do that day. Some people prefer physical paper, I’m fine with Evernote w/ a checklist. As long as I get these 5 tasks done, it’s a good day.

The first 3 hours of my morning are for HV tasks. The tasks that can take any between 30 minutes to 90 minutes. Progressively throughout the day I open up the floodgates to fight fires and tackle the 1st-4th priority tasks.

By 3-5pm I’m on the ‘quick’ tasks that could take anywhere between 1 minute to 10 minutes and I’m ticking off as many as my brain has power for.

It’s important to know your body’s energy levels and have systems and routines in place to handle the workload but if you understand that you will have to switch contexts and go in and out of deep work, eating the frogs first thing in the morning allow you to fight fires in the afternoon.

Switching contexts costs power. If you start with smaller tasks in the morning, you’ve expended more energy and don’t have enough load for the bigger things. Staff offline where possible.

Stay focused and then complete tasks which require people interaction once you’ve got your 5 HV tasks completed.