The Future Laboratory’s Chris Sanderson says that as a nation we work the longest hours but get least done. The comment, included in a feature in Sunday Times Style, attributed this to an inability to concentrate and how at the slightest opportunity, we allow our minds to wander off the task at hand. It seems that in our bid to be multitasking super workers we have lost the fine art of focus.

In a judgemental industry such as PR, many people believe that being seen to clock up the hours and dashing around looking busy equals success. However, we are now seeing a welcome shift in agency life where the quality of work is much more important than the façade of being crazy busy and important. Yes, as with all jobs, there are moments of vomit-inducing workloads but it’s all too easy to get caught up in other people’s stress and fail to see the wood for the trees in terms of your own actual ‘to do’ list.

I can’t help but feel that by trying to do everything at the same time we are creating a rod for our own back in the long term when we need to spend more time on correcting a half arsed attempt.

Have you ever noticed how focused someone is when they absolutely have to leave work on time? For example, a mum back from maternity leave may only work part time in the office and stick rigidly to her hours but, I wonder if in many cases the volume and quality of (actual) work is higher than that of someone full time who bangs on about how busy they are yet spends their time jumping from one job to the next.

As we lose the struggle of achieving a work / life balance perhaps it’s time take a different approach and see if monotasking really is the path to a 7.5 hour working day. Either that or I’m pretending to have a brood of kids at home waiting to be fed and heading for the door at 5.30 to enjoy the evening sun…