Dr. Noah St John says multitasking, a common productivity tip, actually lowers productivity and increases stress. Research shows single-tasking—focusing on one task at a time—leads to faster completion and less overwhelm.
Hey, Dr. Noah, what's a common productivity tip that actually backfires?
A productivity tip that backfires? Actually, this is a great one. It's called multitasking. A lot of people have been taught that they should be multitasking and juggling all these different tasks. That totally doesn't work. In fact, studies have shown that it lowers your productivity, which means it takes much, much longer to get anything done. So instead, what you need to do, the real productivity hack, is focus on getting one thing done at a time. Just focus on getting one thing done, get it done, then take a break, and then go on to the next thing. That is going to help you so much more than the myth of multitasking, which really doesn't work at all. So focus on one thing at a time, and you're going to get more done in less time with less overwhelm and a lot less stress. Awesome. Thank you.
