Is multitasking destroying my brain?
Or is it the life hack we were promised?
I first learned about the idea of habit stacking from an infant sleep influencer who had helped me survive the early days with my first. Domestic duties don’t exactly come naturally to me. I do not find laundry relaxing, I abhor doing the dishes, and cooking would be bearable, save the before-mentioned dishes and additional chaos dinner time tends to bring. I know I’m not alone here – human beings who like to do chores - please know you have been gifted with a superpower!
So when the sleep influencer I followed mentioned the genius, yet incredibly obvious, idea of listening to your favorite podcast or audiobook when you do your chores, I thought, oh duh. I guess I tuned out the rest of her education on habit stacking because I later learned that it’s not just pairing something you don’t like with something you do like. Habit stacking involves taking an existing habit and pairing it with a new habit you want to implement. For example, I’d really like to start drinking a glass of water before I start my day, but I never get around to it through my own sheer willpower. However, I never skip making my bed. Enter the habit stack: If I leave a glass of water next to my bed the night before, make my bed in the morning AND chug said water, tada – a new habit is unlocked.
This does seem like a really good tool. I should inventory my habits and see if I can stack anything else naturally.
So is listening to a podcast while I do the dishes really habit stacking, or am I really just multitasking? I venture to say that it’s more accurate to describe it as the latter. While it certainly helps my chores go by faster, is it a healthy practice?
Is multitasking a life hack?
Multitasking is one of those “life hacks” my generation glorified before discovering it’s more detrimental than beneficial. From Stanford University: “When we take on a task, several brain networks dealing with attention and cognitive control are involved…Attempts to multitask can create interference among these networks, and this can lead to slower processing as well as mistakes.”
The article later states, “Too much multitasking can interfere with both working memory and long-term memory…heavier media multitasking is associated with attention lapses and forgetfulness.
Psychology Today further expands on multitasking: “Once you get used to doing it, it’s almost impossible not to….it’s hard to let go of these habits because you’ve conditioned your brain to send misleading signals to your body. Research has shown that when you multitask ‘successfully,’ you activate the reward mechanism in your brain which releases dopamine, the happy hormone. This dopamine rush makes you feel so good that you believe you’re being effective and further encourages your multitasking habit…Multitaskers basically get addicted to this dopamine rush which leads them to thinking they are being effective when they are not.”
Have I essentially trained my brain to rely on doing two things at once? Am I always multitasking?
Talking on the phone with a client while writing an email to my coworker - multitasking
Scrolling social media during a school presentation - multitasking
Opening a new tab while another is loading - multitasking and incredibly impatient
My husband is telling me about his day and I open up my phone to check my email multitasking and objectively rude
I urge you to take an honest inventory of your day and examine how many times your focus is in two (or more!) places at once.
Humans love efficiency. We want to put in the least amount of time and energy into successfully completing a task. Multitasking might feel like a no-brainer at first – if you find more efficiencies in your day and “hack” the experience, then you’ll have more time to relax, have fun, spend time with your friends and family. This perspective is a misstep. If you zoom out big-picture, by ignoring the major red flags that multitasking creates, are we slowly reshaping our brains and developing habits that are, in fact, detrimental to our efficiency.
How can we make healthy habits?
My initial interpretation of habit stacking, I learned, is actually a separate tool – termed temptation bundling. From James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, “Temptation bundling works by linking an action you want to do with an action you need to do.”
Is this a helpful technique or is it multitasking disguised? Oliver Burkeman argues it’s the latter. Burkeman is the author of “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals.” and writes in a New York Times essay, “Distracting yourself from challenging tasks by, say, listening to podcasts doesn’t actually make them more bearable over the long term; instead, it makes them less enjoyable, by reinforcing your belief that they’re the sort of activities you can tolerate only by distracting yourself — while at the same time all but ensuring that you’ll neither accomplish the task in question nor digest the contents of the podcast as well as you otherwise might.”
So, can we retrain our brains to be less addicted to multitasking? Are there exceptions when multitasking or temptation bundling can actually be beneficial?
Turns out day dreaming is one accepted exception. From Stanford: “There’s at least one situation, though, where multitasking can be your friend. Some studies have shown that taking a walk while trying to sort out a thorny problem improves creativity and can help you come up with better solutions.”
The internet is actually rife with advice on how to start limiting your multitasking. I compiled the below tips from a few sources which I’ll include.
From Harvard Business Review:
Turn off notifications
Give yourself less time to do things, and therefore less time to get distracted by other tasks
From Jotform:
Create a list of daily priorities
Set a time for distractions
Consider apps that block distractions, like SelfControl
On Reddit:
Use the Pomodoro technique
Try to focus on one thing for 10 minutes every day. Then increase to 15, 20, and so on
Meditation
And as for temptation bundling? While I understand Burkeman’s perspective, there’s some merit in utilizing this technique. If listening to a podcast helps you look forward to cooking dinner, you’re not being less efficient, you’re just putting a positive spin on a chore. If you’re “temptation bundling” during the bulk of the day, you might want to take a step back and reassess your habits.
As for me, here’s some changes I want to make in my life:
Make a morning list of priorities and use a timer when focusing on tackling this to-do list
Limit my temptation bundling to once a day - cleaning up dishes after dinner.
Keep my phone in another room when writing
Keep my phone tucked away when talking to other people
Can I retrain my brain for better focus? Only time will tell…
Hi reader. In the coming weeks, I’m launching a new reader Q&A series. If you have a question about digital minimalism or starting your own journey to break free from the internet, shoot me a message at the link below.