“How (and Why) to Stop Multitasking”

The Harvard Business Review looks at what happens to our minds when they are interrupted by multiple tasks. Hint: practice doesn't make perfect.  

Why do we multitask, what happens when we do, and why does it appear so irresistable to stop doing more than one thing at a time?

Peter Bregman, the article’s author and a strategic advisor to CEOs, compares his own multitasking pitfalls to the research around how multitasking impacts our ability to process information.

And while we might think we’re being productive by accomplishing tasks simultaneously, the research seems to show that we’re actually just flitting from task to task.

“Doing several things at once is a trick we play on ourselves, thinking we’re getting more done. In reality, our productivity goes down by as much as 40%. We don’t actually multitask. We switch-task, rapidly shifting from one thing to another, interrupting ourselves unproductively, and losing time in the process,” writes Bregman.

Read the Harvard Business Review article.