You cannot multitask

You cannot multitask.

You can rapidly switch between tasks, but it doesn’t bode well for making the progress you’re convinced you’re going to make.

When you switch from Task A to Task B, part of you is going to be thinking about Task A; the inverse is also true when you switch back over to Task A again.

The term of art to describe this is Attention Residue.

Trying to juggle things — looking at your phone while on a call, responding to a message in the middle of what was supposed to be focused work — strains your cognitive resources, gums up your ability to think clearly, and ultimately gives you the opposite of you want: worse results.

Less really is more here.

By choosing to focus on one thing at a time in a world where it’s the competition for your attention is increasingly fierce, you’ll end up having better conversations and making better things.