Should We Really Be Multitasking This Much?

Why we’re closing (most) tabs.

Does your laptop stay on for weeks at a stretch? With 400 tabs open, 300 things open on the desktop, and too many unsaved notes to count? If you are anything like me, the exaggeration here is minimal.

There’s a tab (or four) for each story I’m researching, tabs for news sites and not-quite-news sites, a tab for each Google Doc, tabs for holiday inspo, plus the new arrivals I have my eye on.

Miraculously, though, somehow, in the chaos, I’ve always managed to get (most of) what’s needed across the line. To borrow from Nietzsche: “order comes out of chaos”.

Still, though, there’s an overwhelm that’s feels constant. It’s like the work always there, waiting in those tabs, even if I’m trying to book a surf trip weekend away on Airbnb (this alone is 5 tabs, minimum).

It’s not, though, just an issue with my overcommitment on the tab front. There are so many reminders in my studio, so many project piles that I have started to use the dining room table as my office instead.

And, I’m far from alone. Ainsley Hansen of Hansen & Gretel is also a chronic multitasker.

“Multitasking is a must if you are to survive in any career, and in life in general these days,” she says.

“I genuinely appreciate the ability to juggle 100 things but when a to-do list becomes overwhelming it can be exhausting.

“I'm constantly doing my best to balance that juggle.”

So, what happens when you lose your balance, if only for a moment? What becomes of those things that slip through the cracks? The deadlines, the unreturned calls, the follow-ups that are forgotten thanks to the distraction.

Tabs make multitasking a force of habit … But are they helping us or hindering us in this business of getting stuff done?

via Instagram @andcgram

The case for closing all tabs

“Frequently switching between tasks overloads the brain and makes you less efficient,” writes Sandra Bond Chapman, phD and author of Make Your Brain Smarter: Increase Your Creativity, Energy and Focus for Forbes.

“Multitasking is a brain drain that exhausts the mind, zaps cognitive resources and, if left unchecked, condemns us to early mental decline and decreased sharpness. Chronic multitaskers also have increased levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, which can damage the memory region of the brain.”

So how can we nurture new neural pathways to create something that isn’t a perpetual state of anxiety?

A senior health editor at The Atlantic Dr. James Hamblin suggests an elegant solution: tabless Thursdays. There’s technology out there that can help the weak willed of us. For Chrome users, for example, there’s the One Tab app. Which, yes, you guessed it, reduced all your tabs to a single one.

Single tasking reduces the overwhelm (if only slightly). It’s a one foot in front of another kind of mentality. A building of an empire on brick at a time. While it’s not always practical in the world of multiple deadlines, the truth is you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time.

Moving away from multitasking

So, how can you make the almost switch to less tabs?

“Diarise, diarise, diarise,” says Hansen. “Immediate action on high priority items throughout the day, and a tick-list and forecast for each working day ahead.”

But it’s not all about work. Hansen also diaries a reminder “to breathe and keep perspective”.

Other tricks to keep your focus?

Take some designated down time. Go for a walk around the block. Take a stretch.

Focus without distraction. The Pomodoro method is a good one for this. Get / download a timer and work in a set amount of 20-minute blocks.

Or, turn off notifications for your morning / afternoon. You’ll be surprised how much you get through without them.

Make a list and then prioritise. Check off one task at a time.

Prior to trying this one-tab approach, I would write a list and wouldn’t be able to tick off a single thing. If you’re focusing on one thing at a time, though, then at least you’ll have some sense of accomplishment, no matter how small.

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