The Multitasking Myth

Stripping life down to the essentials in a world operated under the myth of multitasking is a daunting challenge. Doing more than one task at a time not only fractures your attention but clandestinely undermines both productivity and the quality of your work.

Poor results often stem from being engaged in multiple tasks, creating a monochromatic cycle of inefficiency, which ultimately leaves people vulnerable to unnecessary stress that they have not signed up for in the first place. A survey conducted at Stanford University revealed that people who multitask experience a gradual increase in their stress hormone levels which leads to mental morass of brain fog and a heightened risk of anxiety and depression.

Multitasking is glorified to a grotesque proportion and is perceived as a hallmark of dedication and peak performance. However when it comes to maximizing productivity, this belief is rendered deeply flawed. Trying to do two things at once is not a demonstration of competence; it’s an act of self-sabotage. When attention is split, neither task is done well. Research consistently shows that multitasking doesn’t maximize productivity — it destroys it. The brain isn’t built to juggle complex tasks simultaneously. Every shift in focus comes with a cognitive cost which drains mental energy and as a result reduces overall effectiveness. As Steve Uzzell aptly put it, “Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time.”

In other words, the effort to do more leads to achieving less, with each task suffering from diminished attention and care.

This pattern is more damaging than it appears. Fragmented attention isn’t just inefficient but it corrodes the capacity for deep work as well, the state of peak concentration that produces meaningful, high-quality output. Constantly switching tasks is like trying to sprint through water: progress slows, frustration mounts, and the finish line remains distant. The solution is incredibly simple but difficult in a culture ubiquitously addicted to multitasking: ruthless prioritization and singular focus. The highest achievers understand that real progress is attributed to sustained attention on a single and valuable objective. They purposefully set aside distractions, block time for deep, uninterrupted work and artfully swashbuckle through their tasks, downplaying the quixotic notion that juggling multiple priorities leads to greater success.

Publilius Syrus hit it home, “To do two things at once is to do neither.”

So, if doing the most important thing is the most important thing, why would you try to do anything else at the same time? It’s a great question. In the summer of 2009, Clifford Nass set out to answer an important question: how good are people at multitasking? Nass, a professor at Stanford University, told the New York Times that he admired multitaskers but didn’t consider himself good at it. He and his team gave 262 students surveys to see how often they multitasked. They split the students into two groups — frequent and infrequent multitaskers — assuming the frequent ones would perform better. But the results surprised them.

“I thought they had a special skill,” Nass admitted. “But it turns out that high multitaskers are easily distracted.” In fact, they scored worse on every test. Even though they believed they were great at juggling tasks, the reality was quite the opposite. As Nass put it, “Multitaskers were just lousy at everything.”

Researchers have found that people who are incessantly bombarded with multiple streams of electronic information, fail to maintain focus, retain information and switch between tasks. In contrast, those who tackle one task at a time perform better. Multitasking brings with it a phenomenon known as attention residue — when shifting to a new task, a part of attention remains stuck on the previous one which hinders full concentration and ultimately minimizes productivity.

Cal Newport mentions this concept in his book “Deep Work”, by emphasizing the impact of cognitive switching penalties. Every time attention shifts from one task to another, the brain incurs a cost — a loss of time and mental energy as it reorients itself to the new activity. This continuous switching prevents the brain from entering a state of deep focus, where the highest quality work is produced. While monotasking or focusing on a single task might seem overly simple, it actually leads to better results and maximization of productivity. Multitasking, on the other hand, creates the illusion of productivity due to the sheer volume of activity, but in reality, it squanders time and diminishes efficiency. True productivity lies not in doing more things at once, but in doing fewer things with complete and undivided attention.

You may have heard of the ‘Pareto Principle’, introduced back in the 1790s by an Italian polymath Vilfredo Pareto, stating that 20 percent of our efforts produces 80 percent of results. Following this principle, we must internalize a few simple points: we can easily ‘think 80/20’ and ‘act 80/20’ whatever we are doing and that eventually helps us to stripping away ‘trivial many’ and sticking to ‘vital few’. Later in 1951, in his “Quality-Control Handbook”, Joseph Moses Juran, one of the fathers of the quality movement, amplified the idea and called it “The Law of the Vital Few”. He observed that the quality of a product can be massively improved by resolving a tiny fraction of the problems. He found a test audience for this idea in Japan, a country that had, at the time, developed a reputation for mass-producing inexpensive and subpar products. By adopting a process in which a high percentage of effort and attention was channelled towards improving just those few things that were truly vital, he made the phrase “made in Japan” assume a totally new meaning. And gradually, the quality revolution led to Japan’s rise as a global economic power.

If the goal is to accomplish something meaningful, then attention must be treated as a finite and invaluable resource. The ability to say, “This is what matters right now,” and protect the space to pursue it with full cognitive intensity is not just a strategy — it’s a necessity. Without this discipline, the result isn’t productivity but a cycle of half-finished tasks and the incessant feeling of falling short.

The truth is, most things in life don’t matter much, while only a few things are truly valuable. To quote John Maxwell, “you cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.”

To create laser-sharp focus, we must avoid being trapped in a perpetual state of mental fragmentation . True fulfillment lies in depth, not in the illusion of doing everything at once.

Zahoor Farooq is a short story writer, and a book reviewer hailing from the town, Khrew.