“Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.” Col. 4:5

Have you ever felt like you had so much more to do than time to do it? In other words, overwhelmed? Or perhaps I should ask who hasn’t! Expressions such as “too much on my plate”, “slammed”, “snowed under”, “swamped”, etc., have come into our common vocabulary over the last few decades. Or variations thereof, such as “up to my armpits in alligators” (love the imagery here!).

This raises the question—Is there a way to clear the “food” off our “plates”, peel ourselves off whatever we’ve been slammed into, plow ourselves out from under the snow, dry out from the swamp, and escape the snapping alligators? Good news—yes! While we may never achieve the state of “nothing left to do”, which would be boring anyway, we can bring our time, lives, and to-do lists under control, and relieve undue stress in the process. How?

By doing what I’ve termed “task-combining”. Don’t confuse this with multi-tasking. Multi-tasking means trying to do two (or more) things at once that compete for our attention. Very rarely, this actually works. More often, research shows us that multi-tasking doesn’t work, because neither task receives the attention it needs for optimal accomplishment.

Plus, it causes what brain neurologists call “attention residue”. This simply means that when we shift our focus back and forth between different tasks, each task leaves a “residue” in our brains so we can’t concentrate completely on what we’ve shifted to. It’s like leaving a part of our brain behind every time we switch.

As much as we’d like to believe we’re concentrating on both at the same time, we’re not. Unless, we’re among the 2.5% of the population that the Cleveland Clinic has determined are capable of this. Even if our brains have more than one “window” up together, like computers, our minds are only focusing on one “window” moment to moment, just like our eyes do with computer-window segments.

Task-combining, however, can work. This, or what we can also call “accomplishment-combining”, means paying full attention to both in such a way that each helps us pay full attention to the other and accomplish the best for both.

How does this work? Let’s look at some examples. These examples are taken from discussions I’ve had with leadership-coaching clients who’ve expressed dismay over days not being long enough to fit everything into them. They’ve tried multi-tasking, and found it ineffective (for reasons mentioned above). This leaves them always behind on something, frustrated with important things that keep having to get put off, stressed, and all of it adversely affecting their overall health. (Sound familiar?)

That’s when I’ve introduced the concept of task-combining. I’ve asked them about the various things they both need and want to accomplish in a day. Then we talk about anything they can do at the same time that will actually contribute to accomplishing the other, rather than detract from it. Such as:

• Riding their bicycle to work—they have to get to their workplace, and they need a certain amount of daily exercise. The biking transports them to work, and the distance to their workplace gives them exercise.
• Cooking a meal with their child(ren)’s help—The family needs to eat dinner and the kids need time with their mom/dad. Granted, the meal-prep may take longer and be messier, but look at the gains—bonding with a child/children facilitates dinner made, and making dinner together facilitates bonding with the child/children. And instead of the kids distracting or “bugging” them, they’re contributing to the focus. Plus, there’s the added bonus of children learning a life-skill and responsibility from their parents. Triple-win here!

Here are some other examples of task-combining helping us accomplish more and stress less—now that you know the principle, think of how these work:

~Teaching our teenage son or daughter how to drive while running errands.

~Letting our friend who lives in an apartment that prohibits pets housesit with our dog and cat while we go visit relatives.

~Wash our car at home with our family on a hot day.

~Let our “canine clean-up crew” (aka dog) clean our pots and pans after we’ve eaten. (Ok, this doesn’t work perfectly, since we still should wash the pot/pan(!), but it does help a lot, especially if the pot/pan is gunky)

My husband and I, children, and dog have actually done all of the above, and seen them work. We’ve also been on the other end, as kids, teenagers, and house-sitters, further proving that they work.

How about you? Do any of these task/accomplishment-combining ideas resonate with you? How about at least one of your own? Take a few minutes and plan some out. What have you got to lose, except stress, procrastination, people waiting on you to deliver, and too many “balls in the air” coming at you?