How many times have you heard someone say, “I’m great at multi-tasking! I do it all the time!”?
Let me be clear: Research shows there is no such thing as multi-tasking. Multi-tasking does not exist. It is a myth. Now, you may go through a stage of grieving. I understand this. We all have to let go of self-limiting beliefs we are certain are just true.
Multi-tasking is language describing what computers do. Computers can multi-task. Humans cannot.
What we do, as humans, is alternate in between doing two or more activities. We juggle.
Our brains trying to make sense of this fragmented existence give us the experience that our actions are seamless, but our actions are not. In fact, juggling from one activity to another is a sure way to ensure you will be less productive, make more mistakes and slowly teach your brain how to not be able to focus.
Did you know that the average CEO has only 27 minutes a day of uninterrupted time? Think about that. That is insane.
Did you know the average human being touches their phones over 1,000 times a day? Like it may even be over 2, 000 times a day?
Okay so here is the real cost…it isn’t just that you are getting interrupted all of the time. It’s also the lost time and productivity you experience after you get interrupted. Your brain has to “recalibrate”, so to say, to get back to the original task at hand and that takes time, compared to not getting interrupted at all.
A striking study was conducted involving one group taking a test received text messages and the other group did not. The text message group did 20% worse than the non-receiving text message group. In another study, where IQ was measured. The IQ was 10 points less in the distracted group than the non-distracted group. Smoking pot decreases one’s IQ by 5 points. I’ll leave you to draw the conclusions there.
We are deluding ourselves into thinking we can be productive while being surrounded by distractions. This is where mindfulness can assist. It trains your brain to focus on the here and now. To do “mono-tasking”. Washing the dishes while you are washing the dishes.
We wish we could be superhuman. We wish we could do 10 things all at the same time. And wishing doesn’t make it true. It just makes it magical thinking.
Inspired by the book, “Stolen Focus” by Johann Hari
Listened while juggling (i.e. hiking in the forest).
