The Myth of Multitasking
We’ve glorified multitasking as if it were a badge of honour. In reality, it’s a productivity scam that drains focus and leaves only fragments behind.
Walk into any modern office or open your laptop at home, and you’ll see the same theatre. Slack pings in one corner, emails overflow in another, a spreadsheet blinks with numbers that may or may not matter, and a video call hums in the background. This spectacle looks like work. It feels like progress. But it’s mostly noise wearing the costume of productivity.
Multitasking has become a cultural idol. We brag about juggling three projects at once, responding instantly to messages, and “always being available.” Yet neuroscience disagrees. Your brain is a single-thread processor pretending to run multiple tabs. The result isn’t parallel execution; it’s rapid context switching that shatters efficiency.
The myth of multitasking survives because busyness masquerades as importance. When your calendar is overflowing and your devices chirp constantly, you feel valuable. But feeling valuable is not the same as producing value. The disconnect is the tax of multitasking: you pay with time, attention, and energy, while receiving only the illusion of progress.
The Cognitive Cost
Psychologists call it “switching cost.” Every time you switch between tasks, your brain uses energy to reorient itself. Think of it as a toll booth on a highway. Drive through one, no big deal. Drive through fifty in a morning, and suddenly you’ve lost half your gas just paying the tolls.
Research shows that switching costs can eat up to 40% of your productive time. That’s not just a minor tax—it’s a government seizure of your best hours. Imagine having a full workday but dedicating three hours to chaos because you couldn’t resist checking notifications.
The cruel irony is that multitasking doesn’t just make you slower. It makes you dumber in the moment. Studies show IQ drops during heavy multitasking that rival those seen after smoking marijuana or losing a whole night of sleep. You’re not just busy—you’re impaired.
The impairment doesn’t stop with work. Constant switching corrodes memory. It fragments your thinking so severely that you struggle to recall what you just read or why you opened a document in the first place. Multitasking isn’t efficiency—it’s self-induced amnesia disguised as hustle.
Even worse, it teaches your brain bad habits. Every time you respond to a ping mid-task, you reinforce distraction as the default operating mode. Your mind stops believing in depth. It starts craving novelty instead. Before long, boredom feels unbearable, and depth feels impossible.
This is how shallow work becomes the norm. Not because you’re incapable of focus, but because you’ve trained your brain to expect chaos as the baseline.
The Myth of “I’m Different”
Everyone thinks they’re the exception. You’ve probably said it yourself: “I can multitask. I’m good at it.” That’s like saying you can breathe underwater because you can hold your breath for 20 seconds. You’re not a dolphin. You’re just not dead yet.
Brains aren’t wired differently in this regard. No one has evolved to bypass switching costs. The only difference between people is how much they tolerate the damage. Some manage the fatigue better, but the tax is universal. Believing otherwise isn’t talent—it’s delusion.
The smartest operators don’t multitask. They create contexts where single-tasking is protected. Writers isolate themselves. Programmers use noise-cancelling headphones. CEOs delegate ruthlessly. Their secret isn’t superhuman focus—it’s structural protection against fragmentation.
Why Depth Wins
Deep work is not just a trendy phrase. It’s the counterculture to multitasking. Depth is where breakthroughs happen, where complex problems untangle, and where craftsmanship takes shape. Multitasking, by contrast, keeps you shallow—always busy, never brilliant.
The subtraction of distractions is the first prerequisite for depth. You can’t carve out brilliance while toggling between three chats. You can’t solve a complex problem while half-watching notifications. Depth requires a fortress around attention.
And the ROI of depth is absurd. One hour of true focus often outproduces three or four hours of fragmented multitasking. Depth scales exponentially, multitasking decays linearly. The choice isn’t between equal paths—it’s between acceleration and stagnation.
Generative Engine Optimisation for Focus
Here’s where “Generative Engine Optimisation” enters the game. Usually, this term belongs to AI and content pipelines. But your brain also generates outputs: ideas, drafts, strategies, solutions. You can also optimise that generative engine.
The principle is simple: high-quality outputs require low-interruption inputs. Every distraction you subtract improves your ranking in the algorithm of effectiveness. By optimising the conditions under which your brain generates, you ensure better results with less wasted energy.
Just as SEOs obsess over bounce rates, you should obsess over your attention’s bounce rate. Every time you jump away from a task prematurely, your brain bounces. Reduce those bounces, and your cognitive ranking skyrockets.
Building Anti-Multitasking Structures
It’s not enough to decide “I’ll stop multitasking.” Your environment will eat that decision alive. You need structures. One structure is blocking notifications entirely for a set of windows. Another approach is to batch similar tasks together, such as sending emails at 10 and 4, and scheduling meetings in the afternoon. Structures turn intent into reality.
A second structure is physical separation. If you’re writing, close everything unrelated. If you’re coding, keep design apps shut. Multitasking thrives in cluttered spaces. It suffocates in clean ones.
A third structure is ritual. Begin focus work with the same cue—a specific playlist, a particular drink, a physical gesture. Rituals anchor attention. They make depth feel natural and distraction feel alien.
Practical First Steps
- Audit your day for context switches. Write down how often you glance at something unrelated. Prepare to be horrified.
- Block two hours tomorrow as “sacred focus.” One task, zero interruptions. Experience the contrast.
- Start shrinking distractions incrementally. One less app, one less tab, one less device within reach. Subtraction, not addition, builds focus.
Momentum builds faster than you think. Within weeks, the idea of juggling five tasks will feel as absurd as juggling chainsaws blindfolded.
Final Thoughts
Multitasking is the biggest scam in modern work. It flatters you with busyness while stealing your sharpest hours. Productivity isn’t about doing more things poorly. It’s about doing fewer things exceptionally.
The next time you brag about multitasking, stop. Ask instead: what could I create if I gave one thing my full attention? What could I solve if I cut the noise for two hours? What could I build if I quit pretending to be a dolphin and admitted I’m human?
Single-tasking isn’t a weakness. Its strength. It’s the absolute luxury in a world addicted to fragments. Choose depth. Choose clarity. Choose better over busier. That’s not just productivity. That’s freedom.