Stop Multitasking, Try THIS Instead | Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brains. This is the Kwik Brain Podcast. I'm your host, your brain coach, Jim Kwik, and I'm here as always to help you to learn quickly. And the subject we're gonna talk about today is multitasking. And I know this is gonna hit a nerve with some of our listeners, some of you who are watching on YouTube on video. Hello to all the Brainiacs around the world. Now, do you multitask? Are you one of those individuals that have Slack open and you shift to social media and then you're typing up an email and then you start doing X, Y, and Z? How do you maintain your focus and your concentration in a world full of rings and pings and dings and app notifications, social media alerts? What is the benefits also of monotasking? What the research says is that we are not really good at multitasking, that multitasking is actually a myth, that really what we're doing is something called task switching. So in this episode, I want to share with you a few things that you could do to really harness your monotasking, focusing on one thing. Imagine this, that if you're outside, and I don't know if you did this as a child, I had these magnifying glasses. And I, I got that as a gift. And I would go outside on a sunny day, and I would go out there and burn these leaves, right? Some of you burning ants— don't do that unless they're automatic negative thoughts, which is another episode that we talked about, killing ants, automatic negative thoughts. Shout out to our friend Dr. Daniel Amen. But if you're burning those leaves, right, and you look at it, it creates a focal point, right, where you take the— this ambient light and you focus it into one area, and that area is very bright. And isn't it interesting that we use the word bright to describe what? People who are smart. If you're bright, you are intelligent, right? You are creative, right? You might be even a genius. Maybe they're not smarter. Maybe they're just better focused. When we harness our focus, we're not doing multiple tasks, then we could actually be able to get more things done on our to-do list, on our to-learn list, and so much more. So if you have a to-do list, I would offer another strategy. Have a not-to-do list. What's on your not-to-do list? Multitasking. So that's the power of your focus and really monotasking. But let's talk about some of the things that hold you back in your productivity, your performance, your peace of mind, certainly your profitability when you're trying to multitask. It costs you at least 4 things. Number one, it costs you time. It's the thing you think you're gaining by doing many things at once. Switching from task to task could take anywhere from 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 minutes to regain your focus because you're using a certain pattern of your neuronet that's activated to do one task. And when you switch over to something else, it takes time to reactivate something and to deactivate something else. And so I would say, first thing, don't multitask because it's costing you time, valuable time that you can't get back. Number 2 reason not to multitask are mistakes. We know that surgeons who try to multitask during surgery are going to make more errors during surgery. Even think about it when you're trying to drive and text, which you shouldn't try to do that, right? You're trying to multitask, but we know those individuals are many times more likely to have an accident. Because we do not cognitively switch very easily. And so not only does it cost you time, but it costs you mistakes. Third reason, if that wasn't enough to really focus on one thing, monotask if you will, energy. You know, when you're activating a different part of your brain, it actually uses more brain fuel, more brain glucose. So if you feel in your day that you feel mentally drained, you're suffering from mental fatigue or maybe some brain fog, maybe you're trying to do too much at the same time. So when you task switch, you use more fuel, more brain energy, and you feel depleted. And then a 4th thing that you might not think about, but it definitely could weigh on you over time, is it puts a strain on your working memory. Your working memory is one of those things where you have a phone number in, or you get a passcode or something, you have it in your mind, you can only hold it for a handful of seconds, but you're taxing your working memory because you're holding information here and then you're switching to something else and you forget what you were doing here. It's kind of like you're having a conversation with somebody, you're thinking about this, you can't remember the conversation kind of thing. Nobody does it perfectly. And we all tend to sometimes task switch. The goal here is just to be intelligent and to be aware. Self-awareness is definitely a superpower and try to just mitigate it. And so how can you reduce the multitasking in your life or monotasking? Well, I'll give you a framework. For me, the way I look at it is there's an external world and there's an internal world. And so there's an external world outside of your body that you could try to control and organize as best your ability. It's not always easy to reduce distractions. So something like that could be simple as closing tabs down on your computer, managing your environment so that you're not multitasking. It doesn't make it as easy to multitask if you don't have those apps open. Another way of doing it, controlling your environment, like if you have to focus on sales calls, if you have to focus on returning an email or whatever it is, or writing that day or creating music, whatever you're doing, get rid of the distractions. So that's controlling your external environment. That'd be an example. Once you control your external environment, you also have this internal environment. What's the distraction inside your mind? So for example, maybe you could do right now, just do a check in your body. You know, be self-aware and are you multitasking even right now? Are you listening to this podcast and also trying to do 2 or 3 things at the same time? And we know you're not going to do everything really great. And so are you spreading your focus? Are you spreading your energy or spreading your attention? I would say your brain can't do 2 cognitive activities parallel at once, but you can do physical activities. So you could be listening to this when you're working out, certainly. Also, what is your self-talk? So if you were to ask yourself, where is your mind going? Are you thinking about something that's not in the present? Are you thinking about what's coming up? Are you thinking about what happened in the past? Because that will direct your focus and your focus is going to direct how you feel and how you feel is going to direct your behavior moving forward. My personal thoughts are you could use external tools. You could put a timer and just say, hey, I'm going to do 30 minutes of deep work, and then use that external trigger as a way of monitoring and managing your own time. Does that make sense? Even in your internal environment, your self-talk, what is the best use of this moment? What is the most important thing to focus on? Because it's not just managing your time in terms of multitasking. Part of it is managing priorities. So it's not time management. Maybe it's priority management. You've heard me say this before. The most important thing is to keep the most important thing the most important thing, and the most important thing is what you're doing at the moment. Because even when we're thinking about the past or thinking about what could happen in the future, we're depleting ourselves of energy. So I hope this little stream of consciousness conversation with you, a reminder if you will, that multitasking doesn't work, that monotasking will actually get you what you want faster, easier, with more certainty, and with more flow. So my question for you as you move forward right now: Are you multitasking throughout the day? And just Just even having this conversation, listening to this podcast will get you more sensitive to it. Even when you listen to a podcast on how to remember names, even if you're not using the technique, you're probably going to remember names more because your attention is there, right? Your observation is there. And where your awareness goes, your energy flows. Be conscious when you are multitasking or trying to do that. Remind yourself why it's not the most productive thing to do in terms of your performance, in terms of your impact. And then also Control your external environment and your internal environment because that is in your influence. Do it the best you can. It's never going to be perfect. But what are one small thing you could stop in the environment, maybe distractions, and one small thing you could start in your environment that will harness your focus? Maybe using a countdown timer or maybe giving yourself a reward at the end of a focused session. Or internally, what's one thing you could stop? Maybe thinking about the future or thinking about the past or thinking about something else that you need to do. If something comes in your mind, Don't fight it because what you resist persists. Use an external tool like even a piece of paper to capture it, and then your mind can go back to what you're attending to, right? So then you don't have to lose that idea. You capture it externally and then come back to it after you're done with your process. Let me know what you thought about this episode. Take a screenshot if you like. Make sure you post it, share it. Please leave a review because your stories matter. We read every single one of our reviews and we start every single one of our day, our team, reading those joy stories. So if you would, And we appreciate your messages. Copy and paste it and put in a review, whether whatever platform you're engaging this. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you post it down below and make sure you subscribe. iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, so you don't miss the next episode. All right. Thank you so much for listening and watching. I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, be limitless.

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