Have you been feeling anxious lately? Multitasking may be the cause.
The truth is, there is no such thing as multi-tasking. We may think we are doing two things at once, but what we are actually doing is switching rapidly from one task and another. It is simply impossible to do two things at once. The human mind can only focus on one thing at a time.
This bouncing back and forth between tasks (that we call multitasking) is massively inefficient. You actually get less done and the quality of what you get done suffers. What we call multi-tasking leads to more mistakes, less creativity, lower productivity, and is one of the main causes of anxiety in our lives today.
The sad thing is multitasking has taken over our lives. A study conducted by Harvard Psychologists discovered that on average people spend 47% of their waking hours think about something other than what they are actually doing. This includes the time we spend with the people we love the most.
On average, people spend 40% of their day multitasking with email and instant messages alone. Most people cannot go for more than six minutes without checking their messages.
Studies have found that the average person switches tasks every 3 minutes.
Matt Twain observed, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Multi-tasking is a myth. So now, let’s take a look at the power of single-tasking.
Matthew Kelly
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