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I’m a full-time freelancer, which means I spend my days writing articles from my house. But once upon a time, I commuted to an office every day where I was bombarded with meetings, assignments, Slack channels, and project check-ins.
I like to give each task my full undivided attention, so when something ripped my focus away—like a Slack DM or a coworker walking by—I felt like I got major attention whiplash. I’d lose my flow, and it’d take me a few minutes to get back in it. For a long time, I felt like something was wrong with me because I couldn’t flip between tasks like some of my coworkers, who seemed gifted at doing multiple things at once. But I’ve since learned I’m not a freak (at least not in this way) and that human brains aren’t built for multitasking.
In fact, your brain can only really handle one thing at a time, so when you go through your inbox during a team meeting, you’re not really effectively doing both of these things at the same time. Instead, “your attention is switching—and if your attention is on email then you’re not paying attention to the Zoom meeting,” says Gloria Mark, PhD, Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at UC Irvine and author of Attention Span and the Substack The Future of Attention. As a result, you’re not accomplishing as much as you think you are (and, most likely, even less than you could be if you were zeroed in on one thing).
So if you feel like you need to do it all, all the time, you might want to rethink your approach. Here’s why multitasking won’t actually help you get ahead.
First, what even is multitasking?
It’s not like doing two things at once is always a recipe for disaster. In fact, people are actually really good at it when one or more of those things is automatic (think: walking and texting at the same time), Dr. Mark says.
But when one of your tasks requires you to think? That’s where so-called multitasking can go south (fast). Your brain can only pay attention to one thing—that requires any kind of mental effort—at a time. So, even if it seems like you’re making progress by juggling a few to-dos, you’re kind of half-assing multiple tasks at once.
Take the case above of emailing during a Zoom call. Dr. Mark says you’re either listening to what your manager is saying or you’re all in on crafting that email. Sure, you might hear a keyword—like your name—but you won’t really be able to digest what’s being said. In this sense, “multitasking really means switching your attention between things,” Dr. Mark says.
Here’s why multitasking doesn’t work—and can actually work against you
Not only is your brain incapable of completing congruous mental tasks, but attempting to do so is terrible for your performance and well-being.
People make more mistakes when they try to do multiple things at once. “There’ve been decades of laboratory studies that show when people are multitasking—again, they’re switching their attention between different tasks—they make more errors,” Dr. Mark says. One study, for example, found that physicians were more likely to write an incorrect prescription when they did two things at once, like typing on a computer while answering a patient’s question. (Making a mental note to force my doctor to 100% focus on me during appointments).
The consequences can get pretty dire: If you’re driving and talking on the phone, even if it’s hands-free, you’re not fully dialed into what’s happening around you. As a result, you might not see a car drift into your lane as quickly as you would if the road had your full focus, says Anthony Wagner, PhD, deputy director of the Stanford Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute.
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