The Multitasking Myth: How 'Doing Everything at Once' is Costing You Your Marriage
The multitasking ability we've been told makes us superhuman, is actually destroying our most precious relationships.
The Glorification of Female Multitasking
We've all heard it, perhaps even proudly claimed it ourselves:
"I'm an excellent multitasker, I work great under pressure!"
Society celebrates women who can juggle a million things at once. We're expected to seamlessly switch between business owner, partner, mother, household manager, and more. This ability to multitask has become a badge of honor, a marker of female competence.
But what if this "superpower" is actually our kryptonite?
The Neuroscience Reality Check
Here's what neuroscience has definitively proven: multitasking is a myth. The human brain cannot actually perform multiple cognitive tasks simultaneously. What we call "multitasking" is really just rapid task-switching; forcing our brains to constantly start and stop, redirecting attention from one focus to another.
This constant switching comes with significant costs:
Each switch requires additional brainpower
Productivity drops by up to 40%
Error rates increase dramatically
Stress hormones flood your system
When you're checking emails during family dinner or responding to client messages during date night, you're not being efficient, you're fragmenting your attention and burning precious mental resources.
The Relationship Tax of Divided Attention
While multitasking reduces your business effectiveness, its impact on your relationships is even more devastating.
The Illusion of Presence
When your attention is divided, the people you love most receive a diluted version of you. Your partner doesn't get your full presence, your genuine reactions, or your emotional availability, they get whatever remains after your attention has been spliced between multiple demands. You’re in the room, but you’re not really present.
This creates a distinct message: everything else is more important than them.
The Intimacy Connection
Intimacy, both emotional and physical, requires full presence. It depends on attunement, the ability to fully notice and respond to another person's emotional state. This attunement becomes impossible when you're multitasking.
Research shows that even having a phone visible during conversations reduces connection and empathy between partners. Now imagine what happens when you're actively using that phone while attempting to connect with your spouse.
The Trust Erosion
Trust isn't just about fidelity, it's about reliability and safety. When your partner never knows which version of you they'll get, the present one or the distracted one, it creates relationship insecurity.
Your inconsistent presence teaches them that your connection is conditional and unpredictable. Over time, this erodes the foundational trust upon which all healthy relationships are built.
The Nervous System Story
As an entrepreneur balancing business and family, your nervous system is likely in a constant state of hyperarousal. This state makes deep connection physiologically impossible.
When you're multitasking:
Your body remains in a low-grade stress response
Your breathing becomes shallow
Your muscles stay tensed
Your mind stays vigilant for the next "emergency"
This physical state directly contradicts what's needed for relationship connection: relaxed presence, deep breathing, muscle relaxation, and mental calm.
Your partner can feel this disconnection in your body language, even when you think you're hiding it well.
The Business Cost You Didn't Expect
The multitasking approach isn't just damaging your marriage, it's limiting your business too.
My client Rebecca discovered this firsthand: "I was managing 10 different clients simultaneously, constantly responding to all of them, project managing their businesses while trying to run my own. I was scattered, overwhelmed, and inefficient. When I finally started focusing on one client at a time, setting boundaries around my availability, and working in focused blocks, I got more done in less time without the overwhelm."
Multitasking keeps you in perpetual mediocrity, never terrible enough to force change, but never excellent enough to command premium prices or create truly innovative solutions.
Breaking Free: From Multitasking to Deep Presence
The path away from multitasking isn't about time management, it's about attention management. Here's where to start:
1. Schedule Presence Blocks
Rather than multitasking throughout the day, create dedicated blocks for different priorities:
Business focus blocks with no personal interruptions
Family presence blocks with devices completely away
Partner connection blocks where nothing else exists
One task at a time. Devote your attention fully to one task.
This approach might initially feel like you're doing less, but you'll actually accomplish more in each area while protecting your relationships.
2. Create Transition Rituals
Your brain and body need clear signals when switching between roles. Develop simple rituals that help you transition:
A 2-minute breathing practice before leaving your office
A quick walk around the block between work and family time
A specific phrase you say to yourself when ending work for the day
These transitions help your nervous system shift from business mode to relationship mode.
3. Identify Your Multitasking Triggers
Most of us have specific situations that trigger multitasking:
Fear of missing important messages
Anxiety about work deadlines
Discomfort with emotional conversations
Habit and conditioning
Identifying your specific triggers allows you to address the root cause rather than just the symptom.
4. Practice the Reset Breath
When you catch yourself multitasking (especially during important relationship moments), try this:
Pause whatever you're doing
Take one deep breath in for 4 counts
Hold for 2 counts
Exhale for 6 counts
Say to yourself: "This person deserves my full attention"
Put down any devices and turn toward your partner
This simple reset can pull you back into presence when you've drifted into multitasking.
Choosing Presence Over Productivity
The multitasking approach promises that you can have it all simultaneously. The reality is that multitasking ensures you'll never fully experience any of it.
By choosing presence over productivity, depth over breadth, you actually become more effective in your business while saving your most important relationships.
As one client beautifully summarised: "I realised I'd been so busy trying to keep all the plates spinning that I'd forgotten what I was spinning them for. My business exists to create a beautiful life with the people I love, not to replace it."
In my Love & Legacy program, we work extensively on shifting from the multitasking mindset to creating sustainable systems that allow you to be fully present in both your business and your relationships. Because true success includes both a thriving business AND a thriving marriage, not one at the expense of the other.
