Name: STOP MULTITASKING NOW - Why It's NOT Efficient to Multitask (animated)
Uploaded: 2018-09-03T22:02:03.000Z
Duration: 8 min 16 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

When you try to do two things at once, you
can't or won't do either well.

If you think multitasking is an effective
way to get more done, you've got it backward.

Right now, you might be watching this video
while clicking around the Internet, watching

You're trying to save time by doing multiple
things at once.

It's a lie because nearly everyone accepts
it as an effective thing to do.

It's become so mainstream that people actually
think it's something they should do, and do

We not only hear talk about doing it, we even
hear talk about getting better at it.

More than six million web pages offer answers
on how to do it, and career websites list

"multitasking" as a skill for employees to
target and for prospective hires to list as

Some have gone so far as to be proud of their
supposed skill and have adopted it as a way of life.

But the truth is multitasking is neither efficient
nor effective.

In the world of results, it will fail you
every time.

And for some reason in today's society,
doing just one thing at a time seems downright wasteful.

But you're actually wasting time by multitasking.

I doubt you'll remember anything from this
video if you're doing something else right now.

Why does multitasking cause a loss of speed,
accuracy and wisdom?

It goes back to the limitations of our brain's
deliberate system.

While we might think we're processing tasks
in parallel, our deliberate system is actually

rapidly switching our attention between each
activity.

And when you switch from one task to another,
it always takes some time to start a new task

and restart the one you quit, and there's
no guarantee that you'll ever pick up exactly

An interesting explanation comes from Sophie
Leroy, a business professor at the University

In 2009's paper, titled, "Why Is It So Hard
to Do My Work?"

Leroy introduced an effect she called attention
residue.

The problem this research identifies is that
when you switch from task A to task B, your

A residue of your attention remains stuck
thinking about the original task.

Even if you finish task A before moving on
to task B, your attention still remains divided

Only by working on a single task for a long
time without switching, you can minimize the

negative impact of attention residue from
other obligations, allowing you to maximize

So let's say you're writing an article for
your job.

You're fully focused on your work and you're
nearing completion.

Suddenly one of your co-workers comes by your
desk to discuss a business problem.

While this interaction might seem harmless,
it actually left a huge dent on your attention.

Now when you go back to writing that article,
your focus will remain divided, and you won't

be able to fully concentrate, simply because
you'll also be thinking about that interaction.

A study of Microsoft employees found that
after they were interrupted by an email, it

took them fifteen minutes to fully regain
their train of thought, whether they replied

Just multiply the number of interruptions
you get in your average day, and you begin

to see why it might not be good for your productivity
to be constantly interrupted.

This drawing should help you visualize the
problem better.

Here you can see, how uninterrupted work flow
looks like.

And now this is how it looks like when you
get distracted.

First you have to switch, and then you have
to reorient yourself for whatever you're about to do.

The cost in terms of extra time from having
to task switch depends on how complex or simple

It can range from time increases of 25 percent
to well over 100 percent for very complicated tasks.

So what does this have to do with multitasking?

It explains that we're unable to fully focus
at two tasks simultaneously and we have to

keep switching between them, leaving us with
attention residue.

Multitasking more frequently doesn't make
you better at it either.

In fact, habitual multitaskers have been found
to take longer to switch between tasks than

occasional multitaskers. Perhaps because
they've lost the knack of focusing for any

And ironically, research suggests that people
who are most confident in their ability to

In the summer of 2009, Clifford Nass set out
to find out how well so called multitaskers, multitasked.

Nass, who was a professor at Stanford University,
said that he had been jealous of multitaskers

So he and his team of researchers gave 262
students questionnaires to determine how often

They divided their test subjects into two
groups of high and low multitaskers and began

with the presumption that the frequent multitaskers
would perform better.

Although they'd convinced themselves and the
world that they were great at it, there was

To quote Nass, "Multitaskers were just lousy
at everything."

But people can actually do two things at once,
such as walk and talk, or chew gum and read a map.

What we can't do is FOCUS on two things at
once.

Unlike our brain's deliberate system, the
automatic system is capable of parallel processing.

So if one of your tasks truly requires no
conscious thought from you, it's possible

Driving a car is often cited as a good example
of an automatic task, which is why we're able

to chat with a passenger at the same time
as driving along quiet stretches of road where

But as soon as that simple task becomes more
complex, if say another car pulls out suddenly

in front of you, driving is no longer an automatic
task.

It requires conscious attention from our deliberate
system.

And at that point, we can't chat and react
safely to the changing situation in front of us.

That's why one of in every five serious crashes
is caused by a distracted driver.

As you can see multitasking can even be fatal.

We fully expect pilots and surgeons to focus
on their jobs to the exclusion of everything else.

We accept no arguments and have no tolerance
for anything, but total concentration from