Are you a frequent multitasker?
Last week, I caught myself multitasking. A lot. In the moment, it felt like I was extra productive and “busy,” but in hindsight I can look back and see how it drained my energy and wasn’t actually super effective in terms of getting things done.
As a reminder to myself, which I hope you’ll also find useful, I want to chat about why multitasking isn’t what we think it is and how it often depletes our mental resources.
Our brains cannot focus on multiple things at once. Multitasking, then, is actually us playing mental acrobats by shifting our attention from one thing to the next and back again.
While this may not sound like a big deal, this attention shifting, also known as task switching, actually requires a good bit of energy. This energy is then no longer available to the tasks we are switching between because it is being sucked up by the act of switching between them.
Multitasking, then, is actually us playing mental acrobats by shifting our attention from one thing to the next and back again.
So, we should never multitask?
Now, I don’t think multitasking is all bad. If you gain anything from reading this, I hope it allows you to reflect on the nuances of your own habits of multitasking. I hope you start to consider which multitasking habits are serving you, and which ones are depleting your energy unnecessarily.
To give some examples, I want to share some findings from my research on people’s time use (I promise I won’t ramble on for too long!).
In my research, participants report that they frequently multitask, and that this multitasking typically involves some sort of technology.
They turn on a podcast during work commutes. They listen to music while cleaning the house. They scroll through social media while on the phone to someone or watching TV.
In some of these cases, this multitasking makes the time more enjoyable. The podcast or music or social media make mundane activities, such as cleaning the house, more entertaining.
However, participants also report a stretch of attention when multitasking. They realize that their attention is being diluted across multiple things, and thus nothing gets their full attention.
It wouldn’t be useful or realistic to say we need to stop all multitasking forever and always. But what I would like to leave you with today is a number of questions to reflect on to consider when multitasking is serving you, and when it is unnecessarily zapping your energy.
By building an awareness of when and how we multitask, we can then shift our focus (no task switching pun intended) to how we want our multitasking habits to work for us. This not only helps us to conserve our energy, it also allows us to optimize our efficiency and give quality attention to the things in our lives that deserve it.
It wouldn't be useful or realistic to say we need to stop all multitasking forever and always. But what I would like to leave you with today is a number of questions to reflect on to consider when multitasking is serving you, and when it is unnecessarily zapping your energy.
Reassessing Our Multitasking Habits
When are you most prone to multitasking?
(When I don’t have clarity around what I want to accomplish, I just know I have a lot of things I want to do and I want to feel productive.)
What activities do you most often include in your multitasking?
(I’m looking at you, email inbox.)
What multitasking habits serve you?
(Listening to a podcast while I clean or cook is delightful for me.)
What multitasking habits are not serving you?
(Twelve tabs open with three emails being written while checking a notification that’s popped up on my phone and also thinking about a meeting I have later today is really only stressing me out.)
What is one way you could adjust a habit that is not serving you?
(I close out of or minimize tabs on my computer when I want to focus on one main task. And, I move my phone off my desk so I cannot see it.)
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