Have you ever had the remarkable pleasure of talking to someone who keeps checking their phone for new text messages while they are talking to you? Naturally, nothing you are saying could matter quite as much as the next fabulous text message they are pretty sure they are going to receive.
The stupid idea of multitasking has spread throughout our society like a contagious disease. It isn’t simply a "bad" idea (as in unsafe, rude, counterproductive), it also happens to be physically impossible.
One does not "multitask". Oh sure, you can think you are multitasking but you are not. What a "multitasking person" is doing is one of the most inefficient things possible (as far as real work output goes): they are stopping doing one thing and starting another, literally jumping from task to task and back again. They aren’t really "there" with regard to the other tasks they are "sort of doing".
Almost all truly successful people in just about every profession and activity (sports, business, entertainment, construction – you name it) have ONE thing in common: THEY DO WHAT THEY ARE DOING WHILE THEY ARE DOING IT.
A common problem for Realtors is they never quite "arrive at work" so can never really take time off either. When they are "on vacation" they are still working on deals, sending faxes, taking calls – in other words, they simply changed their location but not what they were doing. I see agents out to dinner and there – sometimes actually on the table – sits their cell phone. Oh no, can’t take a chance on missing an important call!
If you are an on call medical doctor (or some profession where it really is a matter of life and death) perhaps being interrupted during dinner makes sense. If you list and sell houses for a living, I don’t get it.
When working, work. Really work. When not working, don’t. Not even a little bit. BE. HERE. NOW.
Try it sometime. You just might like it.