Hi there 👋
It's Monday again, and I'm here with a new idea to carry into your week.
You know those days when you have a checklist of things to get done and you think, if I just start and finish two of those items simultaneously, I'll save myself a whole time slot for the third one, or even a tiny break in between.
The next thing I know is I end up spending the next hour fixing the mess the first two made. Yes. You know exactly where this is going. Multitasking.
My first thought when I really sat with this word was, who named it that? Because it was never a 'Select All + Execute' approach. It never worked that way. Not even once.
So I spent some time feeding my curious mind. And what I found actually answered my double guesses.
When I started my work career several years ago, I still recall there was one specific moment in one of my very first meetings where I was expected to facilitate a meeting and take notes at the same time. All while having a professional face on. Calm. Collected. In control. I was none of those things at that time.
I'd start writing down a sentence in my notebook and wouldn't finish it because I had to jot down the next important point before I missed it. On top of that my handwriting wasn't any perfect to refer back to. My notepad would have screamed at me if it could.
The most embarrassing part wasn't that I struggled. It was that I kept telling myself it was just part of the process, that it was just expected of my role back then.
What I didn't know then was that I was never actually multitasking. Nobody is. Nobody ever was.
Turns out "multitasking" wasn't even invented for humans. It came from a 1965 IBM paper describing computers, decades before anyone used it on a person. Even computers can't actually multitask, they just switch between tasks so fast it looks seamless. We borrowed a word from machines that was never even accurate for them.
Here's what the science says.
What we call multitasking is actually something called task switching.
Our brains cannot run two conscious tasks at full capacity simultaneously. What it does instead is rapidly toggle its attention back and forth between task X and task Y. Back and forth. Back and forth. Hundreds of times without us realizing it.
That meeting room moment? That was my brain doing exactly that, toggling between facilitating and writing, never fully in either.
Here's the catch. Every single switch has a cost.
Researchers call it the switching cost. Each time our brain redirects its focus it burns a small amount of cognitive energy making the transition between two tasks. The result? Both tasks suffer. The output quality drops. The time to complete either of these tasks actually increases. And we end up more mentally drained than if you had just done them one at a time.
Here's where it gets familiar.
There are moments in modern life where we genuinely have no choice but to run two things in parallel. Talking over a phone call while doing dishes. Listening to a podcast while commuting. Those work very well because one of the tasks is largely automated in the background and doesn't compete for the same cognitive bandwidth.
But the moment both tasks need your actual thinking brain, one of them loses. Every time. Without exception.
Facilitating that meeting and taking notes both needed my thinking brain that day. So neither got the best of me.
This is where presence comes in.
Single tasking isn't a productivity hack. It's an art of being present.
When you give one thing, one task, one action your full attention, you're not just doing it better. You're actually there for it. You're in it. You're giving your 100% to it. That grocery run, that conversation, that moment itself gets the version of you it deserves which again benefits the people around you.
That's in fact everything.
This week's nudge 💛
Pick one task today and do just that thing, and that thing only, from start to end.
It could be having a meal. No TV, especially no audio in the background, no conversations, not even the ones in your own head. Just you and your meal.
Notice what feels different about it, even though it's the exact same food you'd normally eat. Just notice the whole experience of having that meal you sat down to eat for those few minutes.
That's where awareness shows up in our lives. 🌿
Know someone who could use this letter today? Forward it along.
New here? Subscribe to Here & Now and get a fresh letter every Monday morning 💛
See you next Monday ☀️
Consciously,
Narman