Multi-tasking – formula for thriving or folk tale?

Mediation, Musings, ,

If the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland (the 1951 Disney film) used a smartphone, would his passing by a curious Alice have been less panicky?

Are you a multi-tasker? Over the years, real-time task juggling has been praised. Multi-tasking on our digital devices has become the model for all tasks, at work & home (even perhaps on vacation). Hey, lifestyle of the 21st century. In fact, not doing so sometimes is viewed as a personal deficiency.

But what does research say? I’ve noticed a few articles now & then exploring the question. Here’s the latest:

• Psychology Today > “The Power of Single-Tasking” by Carlos Alós-Ferrer Ph.D. (March 21, 2025) – The Myth of Multi-Tasking.

KEY POINTS (quoted)

  • Multi-taskers are less productive, because our brains have a cognitive bottleneck.
  • Time-boxing, time-blocking, and “deep work” productivity techniques are based on single-tasking.
  • Simple changes to your daily routine can help you make better use of your time by single-tasking.


… your brain can only engage in one cognition phase at once. … you cannot answer an email while you follow and actually understand a presentation.

If you try to work on two cognitive tasks at the same time, your brain just switches back and forth between them, never really concentrating on either one and making mistakes. The meeting ends, you have missed half of what the speaker said, and there are mistakes in every email you sent.

Many modern time-management techniques are all about concentrating on a single task at a time. For example, time-boxing means setting a block (or “box”) of time where you will work only on one specific task, making sure that you stop when the time is up.

If time-boxing seems too rigid for you, try task-batching.

Time-blocking is taking time-boxing to the extreme, and filling your entire (work) schedule with boxes for specific tasks so that you always know what you are supposed to do.

[Caveat – finding the sweet spot] Research has shown that, if you schedule leisure activities the same way you schedule work, you will enjoy them less.