Beating Multitasking: Focus as the Key to Efficiency

The Myth of Multitasking: A False Illusion of Productivity

In our productivity-obsessed culture, multitasking is often perceived as an admirable skill, a sign of efficiency and capability.

We pride ourselves on being able to answer an email while participating in a call, or checking social media while watching a presentation.

However, neuroscience and practical experience have shown conclusively that multitasking is largely a myth.

Our brains are not designed to process multiple tasks that require attention simultaneously.

What we actually do is rapidly shift our focus from one task to another, a process known as context switching.

Far from saving us time, this constant switching has a high cognitive cost, reduces the quality of our work, increases the likelihood of making mistakes, and ultimately leaves us more exhausted and less productive.

A Practical Experiment to Demonstrate Inefficiency

To tangibly understand the inefficiency of multitasking, we can conduct a simple experiment that requires nothing more than a piece of paper, a pen, and a stopwatch.

Task 1 (Monotasking): In the first part, take the paper and perform two tasks sequentially.

First, write the sentence, "Focus is the key to success." Then, on the line below, write the sequence of numbers from 1 to 25.

Time the total time it takes you to complete both tasks, one after the other.

Task 2 (Multitasking): Now, take a new sheet of paper. This time, you are going to perform the same two tasks but alternately.

Write the first letter of the sentence ("E"), then the first number ("1"), then the second letter ("l"), then the second number ("2"), and so on until you complete both the sentence and the number sequence. Time how long it takes you.

Analyzing the Results: Time, Effort and Frustration

The results of this experiment are invariably revealing.

You will find that Task 2 (Multitasking) has taken you significantly longer than Task 1 (Monotasking), often twice as long or even longer. But the difference is not just in the stopwatch.

Pay attention to the subjective experience. The first task probably felt smooth and effortless.

The second, on the other hand, felt clumsy, required much greater concentration and, most likely, was a source of frustration.

You had to actively think through each step, and you may have made mistakes.

This experiment demonstrates the "cost of context switching" in a practical way.

Every time your brain had to switch from writing a letter to writing a number, it lost an instant of time and energy in reorienting itself, and the sum of all these small losses resulted in great inefficiency.

The Inevitable Conclusion: The Power of Single-Tasking

This simple exercise teaches us a fundamental lesson about how our brains work: they are optimized for deep, singular focus.

When we devote our full attention to a single task, we enter a state of "flow" in which we work faster, creatively and with superior quality.

The key to true efficiency is not learning to juggle more balls, but having the discipline to focus on one ball at a time.

This approach, known as single-tasking, consists of choosing one task, working on it to completion (or to a defined stopping point) and only then moving on to the next.

By adopting this practice, we not only dramatically improve our productivity and the quality of our results, but we also reduce stress and mental fatigue, freeing up energy for what really matters.

Summary

Multitasking is a productivity myth. Our brains are not designed to process multiple complex tasks at once; what we do is rapidly switch contexts, which has a high cognitive cost and reduces efficiency.

A simple experiment demonstrates this: try writing a sentence and a series of numbers alternately. You will take much longer and feel more frustrated than if you had done each task sequentially, one after the other.

The bottom line is that our brains are optimized for deep, singular focus, or monotasking. By devoting our full attention to one thing at a time, we work faster, with higher quality and with less stress.