Multitasking is a regular part of your day: Watching the TV and having a conversation with your partner, shampooing one child’s hair as you prepare a toothbrush for the other, scrolling through Instagram as you wait in line at the supermarket. But before you know it, you’ve agreed to take the kids to their swimming lesson early Saturday morning, you’ve squirted shampoo onto a toothbrush, and someone has rushed past you at the checkout without you noticing.

While we can try our best to do a few things at once – chopping veg, listening to your child’s spellings as they shout them out, and all the while following a recipe –, ultimately we won’t do any of these tasks as well as we’d like. And in trying to do them all at once, we cause our stress levels and the chances of an outburst to rise.

Why does multitasking lead to stress?

Multitasking indirectly increases stress in the following ways:

It distracts us and makes us less attentive.

It increases anxiety and reduces creativity.

It makes it far more likely that we’ll miss important information and cues.

It makes us less efficient overall.

Now, we’re not saying that you can never multitask, after all, sometimes there’s really no avoiding it and no need to avoid it, but now that we’ve drawn your attention to some of the drawbacks, we’d like to offer a few suggestions that can help you to multitask less.

How can I learn to multitask less?

The four-step multitasking method:

Notice when you’re multitasking. Trying to spot when you’re doing more than one thing at once requires a little practice, but once you’re doing it, you’ll soon find that it happens more often than you’d think.

Remind yourself that you have the option to just do one thing. Once you’ve caught yourself multitasking, remind yourself that you can almost always choose to stop. Again, this takes some getting used to, but the more you practise step 1, the easier step 2 becomes.

Decide if now is the time to multitask or not. So you’ve caught yourself multitasking and let yourself know that you can decide to do one thing at a time, but what if multitasking makes sense in this instance? There are definitely times when multitasking makes sense: Listening to an audiobook whilst you put away the laundry, talking to a friend on the phone whilst you walk to the shops, knitting whilst the TV plays in the background. If you’re not sure whether the tasks at hand should be done one at a time or if they’re multitask-friendly, ask yourself the following questions:

Are you feeling stressed or tired? If the answer is yes, chances are neither task will be done particularly well.

Will there be significant consequences if you mess up? Losing a stitch as you knit or popping a pair of your child’s underwear in your underwear drawer is hardly a big deal. However, trying to prepare a meal whilst having an important phone call with your boss? Texting while you drive? Or accidentally putting toothpaste in your child’s hair instead of shampoo? These things can lead to potentially bigger problems.

Are the kids with you? The fact is, it’s even harder to complete more than one task at one time when the kids are about. So, if they’re plodding about nearby, try to keep multitasking to a minimum.

Assess. Once you’ve made your decision, ask yourself how things are going and how you are feeling. If those stressful thoughts come up, go back to step 2 and work from there.

Now you may be thinking, but if I don’t multitask when the kids are about, I won’t get everything done, and we completely appreciate that. So, we’d like to share a few tips for getting stuff done while taking care of the kids.

Teach your kids to help with chores. It may take some time and encouragement, but eventually, this should help to lighten your load.

Ignore the kids. We know it sounds a little harsh, but it’s actually good for the kids to learn to entertain themselves too. Obviously, we don’t suggest that you do this all the time, but remember that sometimes it’s a perfectly good option. So don’t feel bad about it.

Get some help. Organise a few playdates so you can get some work done in peace, and, if they’re able, have older siblings or cousins help entertain young kids.

How can I stop multitasking?

Unii looks at doing one thing at a time and getting it right every time.