Melinda French Gates says multitasking is a myth

• Melinda French Gates said she tends to focus on one task at a time to avoid mistakes.
• She said multitasking is a myth and led to errors in her career.
• During her career at Microsoft, multitasking was a big deal.

Melinda French Gates believes in taking on tasks one at a time.

During a Monday appearance for her new book, "The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward," French Gates responded to a question about the challenge of focusing in the era of emails, social media, and other distractions.

"I think multitasking is a myth, honestly," French Gates told CNN's Abby Phillip.

She added, "I made some of my biggest mistakes when I was multitasking."

The 60-year-old billionaire philanthropist started her tech career at Microsoft in 1987 when it was a budding company making a name for itself. Even in the pre-smartphone era, French Gates said, there was a lot of urgency in the corporate world.

Once she realized multitasking wasn't for her, she had to do things her way. She discovered that she was "much better off" when she could tell herself to slow down and focus on one thing at a time.

"I might not complete the whole task, but focus on it. Put it aside, even if it's only 60% done, and then focus on the next thing," French Gates said.

Microsoft has a reputation for having a fast-paced culture where the smartest and most productive employees thrived under her ex-husband and former boss, Bill Gates. The Microsoft founder took on loads of information daily as the CEO, managing multiple teams at once, a former employee told BI in 2023.

In French Gates' case, she said taking a different approach "really helped me."