Staying focused on a single task is so beneficial–and so challenging. This week, Shannon and Janine discuss how our brains aren’t wired to multitask and some strategies for doing one thing at a time.
Discussion topics include:
- The soothing and healing power of a cat’s purr
- How hard it is to resist multitasking
- The impossibility of doing more than one thing at the same time
- How multitasking usually results in none of the things being attempted done well
- Situations where you can truly multitask (at least sometimes)
- Shannon’s strategy: Placing a sticky note about the one thing she’s trying to do on her computer monitor to keep her on task
- Another tip: Turn off notifications
- How focusing on doing one thing at a time seems more important these days than ever
- Acknowledging the temptation of other things and jotting the distraction down to come back to later
- The relationship between our poor memories and distractibility
- The limits of our working memory
- How we can (purportedly) hold only seven pieces of information (plus or minus two) in our memory at a time
- How multitasking is actually rapid switching between tasks–and it takes a lot of brainpower
- The benefit of staying focused on one thing until you complete it: The reward of completion!
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