Actress Emma Watson once tweeted, “I just dropped my iPhone in my soup. I think it might be time to tone down the multi-tasking.”

We’ve all seen countless job descriptions that describe the ideal candidate as someone who is good at multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is still often portrayed as a desirable characteristic and a skill that only some people possess. In fact, it has been well established in many studies that no one has the ability to effectively multi-task, and multi-tasking decreases productivity and increases stress. Our brains don’t actually multi-task, they just rapidly switch between tasks, sometimes fast enough for us to think that we are doing several things at once. However, every time we switch, there is a ramping cost in your brain; it takes anywhere from a few seconds to fifteen minutes for your brain to fully re-engage. This makes you feel incredibly busy, decreases creativity and productivity, and increases stress and anxiety.

Multi-tasking also requires you to hold a lot of information in your working memory, which is controlled by your brain’s pre-frontal cortex. The pre-frontal cortex is also responsible for will power and keeping fear and anxiety in check. Multi-tasking increases the load on your pre-frontal cortex, overwhelming it and destroying its ability to prevent fear, anxiety and the temptation of distraction from taking over.

The solution to multi-tasking melt down? Work on one thing at a time in intense, short bursts. People who are most productive and successful utilize their talents and energy to fully focus on one specific task at a time and do that task to the best of their ability, without interruption and for short focused periods.

Could you or your employees use help replacing multi-tasking with more productive work habits? One of the many popular consulting topics and workshops we provide is “Multi-tasking Makes You Stupid”, which helps people learn strategies to prevent multi-tasking and increase their focus and productivity. Contact us to learn more.