do you ever feel tired all the time like your work just keeps piling on top of your desk and
there's actually nothing you can do to ensure you're doing things at the right pace and then
on top of it all you're just feeling tired then the way you try to compensate for this feeling is
try as much as possible to tackle all the work you can at the same time
actually you feel brilliant when you realize you're able to be on a zoom meeting while you're
writing a report or writing some notes or tackling any kind of research well the bad news for you is
you're not being brilliant you're being kind of dumb and so is i before i really started
researching what multitasking does to your brain and then i literally burned out so in
this video i'm going to tell you exactly what you have to do to avoid falling into this trap
so first things first did you know that what we usually call multitasking isn't really
multitasking real multitasking isn't actually possible only computers are capable of doing two
tasks actively at the same time multitasking refers to the ability to actively work on
two tasks at the same time so what we commonly say is multitasking is actually something else
we can be talking about passive multitasking like driving while you're listening to music
or cooking while we watch friends or we'll talking about task switching or task sequencing
task switching is what happens when we're working simultaneously in two things at the same time
for instance if you're working on a paper and playing a game in between paragraphs that's task
switching task sequencing is what happens when you accomplish so many tasks it actually feels like
you're doing them at the same time so here's the bad news there's actually no kind of advantage to
any kind of multitasking that you can actually do even passive multitasking which seems the last
problematic one has a big impact on how your brain processes information as well as your short-term
memory take this example which shows brain activity while someone is driving and a second
image which shows brain activity while someone is driving while listening to a conversation
the same thing happens with task sequencing and task switching so there's a big impact on
your short-term memory as well as the big big decrease in levels of energy
think for instance when you're using your computer and are using two or three apps at the same time
first thing my mac does for instance is starting running the fans and same
thing happens to your brain you can multitask you can finish those tasks but at what cost
also as you're switching back and forth between tasks you have the problem of loose threads
basically as your mind resets to different type of tasks too often part of the brain power you were
using while focusing on one thing at a time gets lost in the middle of the process this makes it
even more difficult to finish tasks within strict deadlines and there's also a problem of ensuring
you can maintain the quality of the tasks you're trying to finish also calculating how long you'll
take to finish a task is very difficult if you're doing two tasks at the same time and no it's not
just adding the time required to complete the first one to the time required to complete the
second task because of information and symmetries and tiredness you're going to take a lot longer
all in all every single time we split our attention between two different things we
have to do two different tasks we are going to see some real disadvantages you can make sure one
of three possible outcomes will happen the tasks you're doing will be performed way slower you'll
start making a lot of mistakes in the process and drastically reducing the quality of those tasks
or you'll literally have a breakdown and if you're still doubting all this there's a very
simple exercise we can make in your computer phone or piece of paper start writing two notes
think of a sentence so in the first note write your sentence all at once and then write your
sentence in the second note how long did it take you only a couple of seconds maybe now
delete those sentences and start doing the same thing letter by letter switching back and forth
between one note and the other every time you have to type a new character how long did that take you
and if you take this as a challenge to the exercise without slowing down the process
here's the thing even if you took the same time writing the two sentences character by character
uh then you took in the first instance you'll probably have to admit it takes a lot more effort
to do this in a faster way just think if you wrote a paper like this
for two hours don't you think you'd feel pretty tired in the end okay so this all seems pretty fun
but what can you actually do if you're a student you have you probably have a lot of flexibility
and independence and you can actually kind of organize your work around these principles
but in most typical work environments multitasking is basically the norm today
and even if you want to be quite focused in your work probably someone is going to knock at your
door send you an email or give you a phone call so let's think about the value of all the tasks you
have to do there are some tasks that hold greater value they get you closer to your goals and every
time you accomplish one you know you're making progress and then you have a lot of support tasks
tasks that are important because they help you accomplish your high value tasks more efficiently
but they don't require the same level of brain power and creativity if you are using
cal newport's terminology we would probably say that the high value tasks are all the tasks you
do under deep work mode and all the support tasks can be done under shallow work mode
and this distinction is important so to avoid the problems and the disadvantages of multitasking
we just need to do the opposite we need to engage in solid single tasking or mono tasking
and that basically means we need to prepare our digital and our physical environment to focus
on one task at a time but once again it's really not realistic to think that we can manage
all external factors and all distractions that arrive at our desk every single day
so there's kind of a tip we can use to ensure that we're devoting the time we need to the tasks that
matter the most and we're leaving the tasks that matter the last for kind of multitasking purposes
so let's look at your schedule if there's a high value task that requires you to engage
in a really focused mindset you should make the time for it but not any block of time
works you really need to think about when it is less likely for you to face distractions
there can be a part of your day when you're more isolated either because people are still not at
work because people are asleep or because people are all in their lunch breaks shifting some time
around to ensure you have some time every single day to minimize the chances of being interrupted
is going to be the solution to your problem when you find these blocks of time commit to doing high
value tasks only the ones that get you closer to your goals admin tasks planning and organization
or highly repetitive tasks can be done during a time where you predict you'll be interrupted after
all there's not much to lose and it's easy for you to restart even if you lose your chain of thought
also respect breaks breaks out the efficiency and quality of all the work you produce allow
yourself to rest properly between breaks because that's the only thing that will truly help you
so it's important to be flexible with your time and find a part of your day that allows you to do
the most valuable work if you feel like you don't have enough time to learn because you're swamped
with work then you need to find kind of a system or a service that helps you learn at your own pace
so if you're interested in science and technology i highly recommend taking a class on probability
fundamentals the kind of skill you'll apply on a daily basis even if your job like mine has
nothing to do with actual science and a great place to take this course is unbrilliant
brilliant is an interactive learning platform that teaches about math science computer science and
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i really hope you've enjoyed today's video and i'll see you next week bye guys