{"id":2684,"date":"2013-06-05T14:17:58","date_gmt":"2013-06-05T18:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alifeofproductivity.com\/?p=2684"},"modified":"2022-09-03T01:59:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-03T01:59:46","slug":"stop-multitasking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisbailey.com\/stop-multitasking\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to become more productive? Stop multitasking."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Takeaway:<\/strong>\u00a0Multitasking makes you less productive, and you should create strategies to resist the urge to multitask, like minimizing distractions and checking your email on a schedule.<\/p>\n

Estimated Reading Time:<\/strong>\u00a03 minutes, 15s.<\/div><\/div>\n

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According to a recent study, when you multitask, you are not being more productive – you just feel more emotionally satisfied from your work.1<\/a><\/sup> That’s why multitasking is so fun. You feel<\/i> like you’re getting a lot done because you jump between a large number of things, but you’re really being less productive than if you just focused on one thing at a time.<\/p>\n

“If you’re, say, trying to listen to someone one the phone while typing an email”, says cognitive psychologist David Meyer at the University of Michigan, “something has to give”.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

There are a ton of impacts multitasking has on your productivity. Here are five of the main ones I’ve come across:<\/p>\n

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  1. It makes you more prone to errors<\/b>, because you devote less focus to all of the balls you’re trying to juggle at one time. When you do more than one thing at once, you don’t focus on anything<\/em> to your full capacity.<\/li>\n
  2. It actually takes longer<\/i>.<\/b> When you switch from one activity to another, it takes time “to re-immerse your mind in one topic or another”.3<\/a><\/sup> These are called “switching costs”, and you incur them every time you switch from one task to another.<\/li>\n
  3. It severely affects your performance.<\/b> For one example, in a study with young students, multitasking led “to spottier, shallower, less flexible learning”.4<\/a><\/sup><\/li>\n
  4. It affects your memory.<\/b> Studies have shown that when you try to focus on too many things at one time, you are less likely to be able to differentiate between what’s important and what isn’t.5<\/a><\/sup> Maybe that’s why you forgot why you just walked into the kitchen.<\/li>\n
  5. It adds stress to your life.<\/b> Your electronics should exist for your convenience; not the convenience of everyone else in the world. Allowing other people to shatter your focus by constantly interrupting you may be stimulating and entertaining, but it will make you less productive since you have less control over your environment.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

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    From everything I’ve read, multitasking will almost always make you less productive. That said, there are a few tips to<\/p>\n