Why Multi-Tasking Kills Your Productivity (And How to Stop).

Multi-tasking lowers empathy, reduces memory, and deteriorates your brain. A few thoughts on kicking the habit.

Multi-tasking is the attempt to perform multiple tasks simultaneously or switch rapidly between activities. What we call multi-tasking is really task switching, your brain rapidly shifts attention between different tasks, and each switch reduces efficiency.

Why do leaders multi-task?

● Overwhelming workload and competing priorities 

● Constant notifications and digital interruptions 

● The mistaken belief that we're getting more done 

● Fear of missing important information

The Science: What Research Reveals About Multi-Tasking

I recently ran across the work of prior Stanford professor Clifford Nass on the subject of multi-tasking. In his career as an academic, Nass was deeply interested in our unfolding relationships to computers. He was committed to exploring the deeply-held, but often incorrect beliefs we hold as a culture about our interactions with rapidly-evolving technologies.

Nass discovered some very interesting things about multi-tasking. It turns out that while many of us fancy ourselves effective multi-taskers, none of us are. It is an illusion that we get more done when trying to do multiple things at once. We are more effective and have higher output when we approach tasks, projects, or decisions in a serial fashion.

But that is just be beginning of the surprise here.

Key findings from Nass's research:

● Productivity loss: Multi-taskers are less efficient than those who focus on one task
● Scattered thinking: The effects persist long after multi-tasking stops
● Impaired filtering: Heavy multi-taskers struggle to ignore irrelevant information

Research from the University of California found that it takes an average of 23 minutes to fully refocus after an interruption. The American Psychological Association reports that task switching can reduce productivity by as much as 40%.

How Multi-Tasking Affects the Brain

It also turns out that multi-tasking leads to scattered thinking. Not only when we are trying to multi-task, but also later in the day when we are trying to rest or focus on something enjoyable like a good book. I can remember noting with founder friends the mutual feeling that we had lost the ability to read books. Our focus simply was not there. After reading Nass’ work, this makes total sense to me.

Multi-tasking also damages our creativity. The conditions most supportive of creative and imaginary thinking are openness, calm, and even boredom. Trying to do multiple things at once, particularly with screens or devices in front of us, is highly destructive to creative work.

Creative breakthroughs require your brain to make unexpected connections between ideas. This only happens when you give your mind space to wander. Constant task switching keeps your brain in reactive mode, preventing the deeper thinking necessary for innovation.

Lastly, Nass found that people who spent large portions of their day multi-tasking had reduced empathy. That one really hit me. And then I thought about evenings during my time as a CEO where I found myself impatient or inattentive to my young son during dinner. After spending the day jumping between tasks and demands, trying to juggle many at once, my brain was often spinning in the evening. I was physically present but not always mentally or emotionally attentive to him. Undoubtedly, my empathy was reduced; empathy requires the ability to see and be present with the other person.

The Dangerous Myth of Effective Multi-Tasking

I often hear from CEOs who claim to spend most of their days doing multiple things at once.

Their schedules are composed of back-to-back meetings. In those meetings, they often find themselves also answering Slack messages and reading notifications coming through on their phones.

When I ask startup folks about this way of living and working, there are two beliefs I often hear:

1. It is unavoidable
2. I am the exception; I am good at this

Most leaders I speak with believe there is no other way to do their job besides stretching their attention between multiple activities at once.

Most also believe they are good at multi-tasking; others may be bad at it but they are good at it. The data would suggest otherwise!

The belief that some people are "good multi-taskers" has been debunked by research. Studies show that people who multi-task most frequently are actually the worst at it. Even more surprising: people who consider themselves skilled multi-taskers perform worse on cognitive tests than those who avoid multi-tasking.

What Leaders Risk When They Multi-Task

At Sanity Labs, we hold that the role of the CEO is as follows:

1. To hold the vision
2. To recruit and retain the team necessary for executing that vision
3. To resource that team with capital, clarity, and care

Now let's hold up the job of a CEO and contrast it against Nass’ findings.

Goodbye creativity

For starters, entrepreneurs are creating something from nothing. The early days especially, as well as future shark-jumping ideas, begin with creativity.

If you insist on multi-tasking to get through the day, you may be trading away one of your most core entrepreneurial assets: your creativity.

Goodbye clarity

A CEO is accountable to resource her team with clarity. That may include many elements, among them:

• A clear purpose
• A clear 10, 5, 3, and 1-year vision
• Clear objectives for the current quarter
• Clear values
• Clear working norms

That work must begin with creating the conditions for clarity in our own minds; multi-tasking destroys such conditions.

Goodbye empathy

We speak often at Sanity about the importance of ‘care’ in the CEO's job; ‘Resource the team with capital, clarity, and care.’ People facing the immense challenges of scaling an organization will always perform better when they have a CEO who proves her care for their well-being.

All of this requires empathy. Something we risk trading away when we fill our days with endless multi-tasking.

How to Stop Multi-Tasking at Work: 8 Proven Strategies

If these sound like dangerous tradeoffs to make, particularly given there are no real gains in productivity, fret not. There are some practical ways to make gains in focus and to experiment with a more serial approach to our crazy jobs.

Tools for a radical move toward focus

Here is a menu of options to help you move toward greater focus in your work and that of your team.

Set Clear Goals and Priorities

One of the most common causes of the feeling of needing to multi-task is simply an over commitment to the number of things we feel we must do.

When we say yes to too many things we de-prioritize that which matters most.

Try these approaches:

● Set no more than 3 priorities per day
● Use the Eisenhower Matrix to distinguish urgent from important
● Block time for your most critical work first
● Learn to say no to non-essential requests

Create Device-Free Meetings

I am amazed how many teams conduct meetings with laptops and phones on the table or in people’s hands. In the era of Zoom, this problem has compounded.

Meetings should have clear goals, clear agendas, and no devices. If the meeting is on Zoom, you might set clear expectations that team members turn off all notifications, make their Zoom full-screen, and take notes in notebooks, not on their computer.

Meetings are about alignment, creativity, and problem-solving. Devices get in the way.

Design a Distraction-Free Workspace

Whether you are working at the office or out of your home, design your workspace to be distraction-free. Create space that allows you to get into a flow and where you are not surprised or interrupted by outside factors.

Rigorously eliminate interruptions.

Optimize Your Computer Settings

You may need your computer to do your work, but your computer is also likely the greater challenge to productive work.

Turn off notifications. Period.

Check Slack on breaks, or at set times in the day. Not on-demand.

Check email at set points in the day, the fewer the better. Not on-demand.

Work in full-screen.

Auto-disappear your Apple dock and your menu. As I write this post, there is nothing on my screen but the words I am writing. My phone is on do-not-disturb. My computer lives on do not disturb.

If you are doing focused work, you might even turn off wifi. Have you ever found you get your best work done on an airplane without wifi? You might aim to create those conditions for yourself at set points in the week where you are aiming to do deep, creative work (whether that is designing an app feature or revising a financial model.)

Remove Work Apps from Your Phone

When you step away from your laptop, allow yourself to step fully away.

Remove email, Slack, and the like from your phone. Unless it is absolutely critical to your role, take it off.

Many of us, myself included, trick ourselves into believing we are so critical to our teams they must be able to reach us at a moment’s notice. That is nearly never the case. And the cost of feeling always on is devastating to our rest and recovery.

Practice Time Blocking

Time blocking is one of the most effective techniques for avoiding multi-tasking. Instead of reacting to whatever comes up, you proactively schedule specific blocks of time for different types of work.

How to implement:

● Dedicate specific hours to deep work (no meetings, no email) 
● Group similar tasks together 
● Protect your focus blocks as fiercely as important meetings 
● Start with one or two focus blocks per day

Use Focus Tools and Techniques

Multi-task tools to help you focus:

Experiment with different approaches until you find your rhythm.

Model Focus for Your Team

You leaders out there, invite your team to do the same. Make time away from the laptop part of the working norm.

Talk openly about rest and recovery. Your people are not hammering nails or digging ditches, they are creating solutions around challenging problems. That requires a rested and ready mind, not more hours.

Invite them to remove non-critical company apps from their phone including Slack and email. Tell them you will call them in a pinch; then try never to call them.

Create clear, explicit working norms that support a non-interruption culture. Examples might include:

• Slack responses are expected within 3 hours (not 3 minutes)
• Email responses are expected within 24 hours (use email whenever possible, not Slack)
• We try never to interrupt at someone’s desk or phone unless it is a true emergency
• Meeting time is kept to a minimum; focus time is kept to a maximum

The Benefits of Single-Tasking

When you commit to working on one task at a time, the benefits compound:

Improved productivity: Research shows single-tasking can increase productivity by 40% or more.

Better quality work: Full attention produces higher-quality outputs with fewer errors.

Reduced stress: The constant mental switching of multi-tasking triggers stress hormones. Single-tasking is calmer and more sustainable.

Enhanced creativity: With space to think deeply, you generate better ideas and make more innovative connections.

The transition takes time, but the results are worth it.

Conclusion

It is time to make a change. This entire generation of entrepreneurs and workers are suffering under the incorrect expectation that we can effectively do multiple things at once. We cannot.

Dr. Nass, whose work inspired this post, passed away too young. He died at 55 leaving behind a family and assuredly much important work yet to be done. We might honor him by focusing on what matters and letting the rest go.

The change is not easy. But it is possible.

If you are reading this post thinking that this is a change you might make later, that right now things are too hard, there is too much at risk, the company is too close to failing, I hear you. I have been there. I know those anxieties and the 3 AM wake-ups well. I want to reach through this article and give you a huge hug.

But I also know that putting off clarity and focus will actually reduce the chances your company succeeds not increase them.

There is a great saying: “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” I love that. What might be even truer is “Slow is smooth, and smooth is effective.”

Multi-tasking isn't a productivity strategy—it's a trap that damages your brain and limits your effectiveness. Start small. Pick one strategy from this article and implement it this week.

Wherever you find yourself today, wishing you peace, progress, and connection.

-Matt