Workouts for the Mind
Posts
JULY 27th Newsletter - Multitasking

JULY 27th Newsletter - Multitasking

Are you really good at multitasking 🧐 !?

July 27, 2023

View this email in your browser

Are you really good at multitasking?!

Yes?

No?

Maybe?

Boom…Gotcha! It’s a bogus question because science shows, time and time again, that multitasking - or trying to do more than one task at a time - is not possible:

“Multitasking is a myth. In reality, it’s rapidly switching from one task to another, and then back again. And every time you make that switch, you pay a ‘tax’ on both your time and your energy. For that reason, it’s almost always more efficient to monotask: Focus on one thing and move on when you’re done, so you don’t pay unnecessary switching taxes.” — Dr. Sahar Yousef, Cognitive Neuroscientist, UC Berkeley.

For those who are thinking, ‘multitasking may be rough, for most... But I’m fantastically awesome at it’ … Well - according to science, which Naval Ravikant says is “the study of truth” (podcast below) - they find that those who multitask, can’t stop. In a way, you’re addicted to the behavior.

So what is actually happening when you think you’re doing two things at once? You’re very rapidly “task switching” or moving between tasks, which is not only cognitively expensive, but research consistently shows it has a host of negative side effects including:

Greater signs of depression, anxiety, mistakes and distraction
Decreased signs of cognitive control, memory and performance
Reduction in concentration, focus, problem-solving and creativity

What’s worse? Research at Asana demonstrated that “nearly three in four employees (72%) feel pressure to multitask during the day. With the rise of remote work, it’s become even more common—roughly half of employees multitask during virtual meetings now, an increase from just a year ago.”

How about our free time? Even our leisure time has been taken over by multitasking - Hello Netflix, scrolling Instagram, catching up with texts from your friends that you missed during the day.

So now what? We want you to notice when you’re “multitasking” and instead:

Shift: Hammerness and Moore want you to shift your mind and focus from one thing to another, consciously. We find taking a breath each time you’re going to switch from emails to reading this newsletter :) … this helps to create a conscious choice to move from one thing to another.
Limit distractions: Close those Tabs, clean your desk from distractions, and don’t put more than 1-3 things on your main to-do list (hint: use a post it for your most recent to-dos; your brain gets distracted with more than that)
Join us: Join us for our MOMENTUM Mental Fitness Program to help build awareness of your mind and intention in your day.

Learn More!

Inspiration

(Why we share this: This is a spark of info + research that

gets you excited to practice Mental Fitness)

"Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the tree house; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape..."

― Harper Lee

What makes Summer … Summer for you?