Not only does Flow feel great, but it’s up to 500% more productive than when you’re trying to do multiple things at once. On the other hand, single-tasking is more likely to get you into a state of Flow–the state of deep focus you get when doing meaningful and difficult work. But multitasking and context switching naturally slows you down. Productivity, in its most basic sense, means getting the most out of your time. Focusing on one thing at a time means you’ll get more done When you fully focus on a single task, however, you feel less stress, and can even enjoy your work. Suddenly, because your attention is elsewhere, simple tasks take longer than they should, throwing off your daily schedule, and stressing you out because you fall behind. The simple fact that multitasking takes more energy than single-tasking has compounding effects. Practicing single-tasking, on the other hand, helps you lower the number of switches you do each day and start to rebuild your focus and attention. “There’s not a single published paper that shows a significant positive relationship between working memory capacity and multitasking.” When professor Anthony Wagner, director of the Stanford Memory Laboratory examined a decade of studies on multitaskers, he found: And as we’ve seen, all those switches come with a cost. Research has found that, on average, we switch between apps and websites more than 300 times a day and check email or chat every 6 minutes. To help you get started, here are just a few of the ways that single-tasking beats out multitasking in the long-run: Single-tasking rebuilds your focus “ feels fun, even if it’s draining our cognitive reserves.” Whereas context switching is fun and more likely to give us a hit of dopamine–the brain’s ‘reward chemical’.Īs neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley of the University of California explains in Quartz: Our brains are constantly filtering outside stimuli and our own thoughts to keep us on track. The allure of multitasking goes beyond just workplace culture and expectations.įocusing for long periods of time is hard. How to break the cycle of multitasking: Understand the true benefits of single-tasking To break out of this cycle, you need to understand that focusing on one thing at a time is a superpower. The more you multitask, the worse you get at finishing your work, which means you have more to do, which makes you more likely to keep multitasking to do it all. Multitasking at work also has a tendency to self-multiply. And once you start, it’s almost impossible to stop. This is like the work equivalent to texting and driving. In a 2010 study, Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert found that people spend almost 47% of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re currently doing. When you’re facing an overburdened workload, unsure of what to do, and constantly bombarded with communication that wants your attention, you’re going to try and do it all. (Don’t need to be convinced? Jump to The neuroscientist’s 3-step guide to single-tasking!) In this short guide, we’re going to cover the most common culprits that cause you to multitask, why single-tasking is a better option for everyone, and how you can start harnessing the incredible power of doing one thing at a time. On the other hand, single-tasking is proven to help you get tasks done quicker and at a higher quality than trying to do multiple things at once. And each of those switches takes a toll with researchers saying you lose 20% of your overall productivity for each task you try to take on at once! What feels like doing multiple tasks at a time is actually our brain frantically switching back and forth. And as expectations rise and deadlines get tighter, multitasking seems like our only option.īut here’s the problem: Multitasking is a myth. It’s human nature to try and do multiple things at once. All this despite the fact I’m trying to practice ‘single-tasking’-aka doing one thing at a time. When was the last time you gave 100% of your attention to, well, anything? Even now as I’m ‘focusing’ on writing, I have 9 open browser tabs, 2 random note docs, and a desktop filled with files, folders, and documents competing for my attention.
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