I JUST MULTITASKED WELL FOR THE FIRST TIME! HERES HOW!

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I did it and I would like to think that most if not all of you can too, if it is explained to you the right way.

Heres how it played out. I got transferred over to the dairy section of a large grocery store. Now I was having problems getting alot done. Naturally. However I went to visit the Disability Services Office at my University with whom I have a good relationship with. I informed them that I was having a problem with the job and not getting enough done. This is what they told me:


-If they don't give you a list of things that need to be done be persistent about getting a list.

-Now what you need to do is before you come in to work spend about 5 minutes with a coworker or a manager and ask for a TIME FRAME to complete the tasks on average. Like I said do this before you clock in. Naturally they want you to get it done in less time than that and you can!

-Now from that list, you have to prioritize what is more important for yourself. For example lets say you have 5 tasks: Work remaining dairy products off of the new shipment truck that came in (2) Take juice from backstock skid to floor (3) Work a corner of corner items i.e. creamers, cottage cheese, odd milk, sour cream etc., work a small mobile flat of assorted juices and then if you have time take more product from the backstock.

WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO IS TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO INTEGRATE THE TASKS TOGETHER. See my problem was I was blocking out set amounts of time for each task. Well what I was doing wasting time by doing that. For example from 2p.m. until 3 p.m. I would condition and then from 3p.m. until 4 p.m. I would load up backstock items from the back cooler and work them to the shelf. No this was wrong, instead what you should do is work the items from the backstock cooler and condition at the same time!! !! !! !! !! !! !!

You want the tasks to flow into eachother, because if you separate the tasks it wastes time.

By doing these things you will

-develop an eye for what is a hot sell and which is not.

-Where things are located

-When you are done, take a mental photograph of how it is supposed to be done.

Any questions?

Now this is at a retail store. Where we fail miserably more often than not. I would like to think that I am helping to open the door for others who need it, but I could be wrong.

Where my job gets me -
You are in retail, while I am in shipping.
I work part time for a shipping company.
I have many jobs, they are not able to be multitasked well.

What management wants us to do is to start and complete a task, then flow into the next task.
My problem is figuring out which next task is the most important, so I can flow into it.
Some are obvious.

If I am loading a truck, and the aircraft arrives, I need to stop loading the truck, go out to the ramp and help unload the aircraft. When that task is done, I need to go back into the warehouse and help with the sort and download process, especially with the packages going to other distribution centers.

Then flow into the next task, which is either load freight containers, sort documents, or load trucks, whichever is most critical.

It's the prioritizing that gets me. Usually supervisors will tell/ask me to do another task, and I don't have to figure it out.

Multitasking to me is screwing up more than one thing at a time.

If I can work out an automatic script, I could do it, like walking and chewing gum. Or driving a car. That I can do, but if true exception multitasking is required, I take more decision time than a NT.

rob

I would say that what you need to do is to come in ahead of time and ask your supervisor what he thinks you should get done first and which needs to get done last. Say it like this. 'I want to make sure that I am doing this job well but I am going to need some help on how to do it well. In your opinion, out of this list of this tasks could you rank them from most important to least important.'

That is what I am going to do tomorrow.