The workers of today’s generation are highly caught up between various and several tasks at their workplace. With the constant bugging from their seniors and time-to-time interruptions by their co-workers a large part of employees ends up indulging in the practice of Context Switching or Multitasking.

The biggest catch to this whole game is that it makes a person think that multitasking is the most beneficial as it might help him/her in completing several tasks in a shorter time and within the same span of attention. However, if any person thinks in this manner, then they are completely at fault.

Not only does context switching cause excessive stress but also a large amount of emotional drain. People end up in burnout situations and sometimes even quit their jobs.

Let us see what Context Switching is in detail.

What is Context Switching?

Context Switching is a whole big game of another level that tends to bring down any person who comes within its trap. Context Switching is when people Multitask i.e., perform one or more tasks at the same time. The catch is that these tasks are not even related to one another by any minute aspect as well.

An employee is either forced to indulge in Context Switching due to the kind of atmosphere that he/she has (external) or the employee themselves conclude that they need to perform more in a short period.

Be it any of the way Context Switching is harmful and can cause one to go down on the company graph.

Now, why do you think Context Switching is harmful? Let us discuss.

Why is Context Switching Harmful?

The most harmful and saddening truth or let us say problem about Context Switching is that the person who is performing it does not have any clue that he/she is stuck in this problem.

As per a UC Irvine study, it was seen that Context Switching is becoming the most common problem to be prevalent in any workplace or work environment.

The normal time to reach peak creativity or to maintain a state of flow is around 10-20 minutes. State of Flow according to Positive Psychology is when an individual is completely involved in a particular activity.

However, if this state of flow is frequently interrupted then that person would not be able to complete any one task at a given time.

Some other harmful side effects of Context Switching are as follows: –

•          It lowers down the productivity levels of the employees.

•          It results in a large amount of stress.

•          It highly affects the quality of work that one presents.

•          It emotionally drains a person to a harmful extent.

However, nowadays, some really helpful employee monitoring software have come into being to keep a check on the productivity levels of an employee as well as see the number of tasks that they are indulging in.Learn More about such software by clicking on the blue link.

How to stay away from Context Switching?

Here are some tips for you to stay away from multitasking.

•          Write down a good and realistic list with the most important tasks first.

•          Divide the work into slots and focus on one task for that time.

•          Close down all the notifications while working.