Let's talk about multitasking
Eight ways to break the habit. Why? Because it's better for brain, body and soul to do one thing at a time. Hello monotasking!
Multitasking used to be a badge of honour. Look at me juggling so much, spinning plates left, right and centre. Except it would appear that the monotaskers amongst us, have been working more efficiently all along.
The thing is, when did you last fully focus on one task at a time? Walking while checking emails or listening to a podcast? Cooking while texting. Watching TV as you scroll. It seems to be the modern way. Why do one thing when you can do three. Efficiency! Except it’s a myth.
As I wrote in Happy Inside, it is not possible to do more than one thing at a time and hope to do any of them well. Whether writing notes during a presentation instead of just listening, to driving while talking on the phone (even hands-free), neuroscience indicates that far from effortlessly orchestrating two tasks at once, the brain rapidly switches focus between one and the other in a stop/start process that is highly inefficient, mistake-prone and energy sapping. (Incidentally, research has shown that talking on the phone when driving, whether hands-free or not, increases the odds fourfold of you having an accident.)
When we toggle between tasks, it may feel seamless, but in reality it’s a series of shifts from one state of interrupted focus to the another. Compare the act of listening to a piece of music with your eyes closed, to reading a book with the radio on in the background. While we may not have much time to do the former, half of the latter is completely wasted as what you are reading will not be fully absorbed for every moment that you actually hear the radio.
In addition, apparently, this rapid fire switching drains your creativity. Innovative thinking comes from extended concentration, from being able to follow a thought along an extended pathway. If you are constantly jumping from one thing to the next, you will never get far enough down any road to stumble upon your Eureka moment.
This is why great ideas happen in the shower. Or when walking (as long as we’re not wired into sound). Our focus is momentarily concentrated on the task in hand, and the brain gets a moment to relax. When we keep splitting our attention, we actually deplete our brains of the very neurochemicals we need to focus.
It follows, therefore, that if you have a specific task to complete that requires your full concentration, switch your phone to silent and turn off all notifications (especially the ones that ‘helpfully’ pop up on the corner of your computer screen) and monotask.
Unfortunately our brains are biased towards novelty. We’re drawn to those notifications or ping alerts. We crave a quick check of Instagram to see if anyone has commented on our post. Such things give the reward-seeking centre of our brains a buzz. We need to help ourselves to overcome this because those big rewards you seek? They come from sustained, focused effort. The sort of state sometimes referred to as flow.
If distracted from flow, according to Gloria Mark, a professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds precisely (plus however long you spent occupied by the distraction) to return to full focus. And that’s assuming the distraction didn’t entail any emotional component such as someone texting to say, ‘We need to talk!’ As she writes: ‘attention distraction can lead to higher stress, bad mood and lower productivity’.