How Excessive Multitasking Erodes Our Quality of Life

What happens when I try to do just one thing at a time?

Photo: Getty Images

Please note that these experiences and observations are generally associated with neurotypical individuals like myself. There are likely many other experiences that differ from the ones described here!

One morning, Wonder Girl and I were fighting with rain boots by the front door. I’d been wrestling with her foot in one hand and a slightly too-small purple rain boot in the other for a good thirty seconds before I realized that I was the only one invested in this boot-donning endeavor. W.G. was staring off into space—or more precisely, the ugly ceiling boob light I will never replace—blinking slowly, as if she were taking a leisurely row down an Italian canal. Her whole body was slack, coat hanging lackadaisically over a shoulder. She was in the trance I knew all too well, that of lucid daydreaming. I released the foot and cleared my throat.

“Excuse me. What are you doing, my love?” 

It took a few tries but she finally glanced my way, smiling beatifically. “I’m thinking of a story.” 

We were, of course, running terrifically late. It was some sort of holiday at school, the kind where you have to dress up as the number 100 or a poodle or pirate or something. And it was raining. I did the gentle parenting thing and counted to five, then offered my calmest smile. 

“Can’t you think of a story while you’re helping Mama with your shoe?” I asked. “You know, try to multitask?”

She shot me a puzzled look. “But why?” 

But why?! But because we cannot exist on daydreams! Because we have a schedule to uphold! Because I’ve been stooped for awhile now and my back is not what it used to be. I didn’t say any of this aloud. It was more expedient to finish the boot-wrestling myself, get us out the door, and safely deposit her in the hands of people much more patient than me. 

But hours later, as I balanced an iPad in front of my exercise bike (Family Karma waits for no woman), taking commercial breaks to answer emails, dropping half my coconut-covered protein ball onto the carpet in front of me, and mostly forgetting to pedal at all, I thought of my daughter and that story she was telling to herself that morning. It was important to her, and it was more important, certainly, in her mind than the boring routine of getting out the door in the morning. 

What would it be like to be still for a few minutes, without feeling guilty about it? Without trying to busy my body, as if it were a totally separate part of me from my brain? I wondered: Why am I so obsessed with multitasking?

The simplest and truest answer is that multitasking is a de facto demand on individuals living in a modern, capitalist society. Like the air we breathe, and the Kardashians, it is inescapable.

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Like many of us, my whole, entire life is built on a rigid schema of incessant multitasking. It’s one of those skills that none of us list on a resume as such (though “balancing many projects at once” has definitely come up in an interview), but is crucial to success in many professional roles. And parenting. Relationship-ing. General living. We are so keyed up on our schedules and commitments that the thought of doing just one thing at once can summon a feeling akin to panic. Time is scarce, and if we’re not “optimizing” every second of it, we’ve already wasted our lives. Or at least, this is the insidious message that many of us take away from our days.  In a world where efficiency is king, capable multitasking feels like a literal superpower.

For my part, I’ve always been sort of proud of my multitasking. It felt like I was pulling something over on Time. You wanna give me fifteen hours to work, take care of my slovenly house, spend time with my loved ones, eat, and practice self care? I’ll show you.

I liked to split up my tasks into categories of “Things I really don’t want to do” and “Things I want to do marginally more.” And then I smush them together. Hopping on treadmill? Okay, but only if I can also watch reality T.V. Listening to a Vietnamese language lesson? Well, only if I can play Candy Crush while I do it. Making doctor’s appointments? Sure, but I’ll do it over lunch. It’s my form of self-bribery, one that has “worked” for years … until it didn’t. 

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Parenting during the pandemic sent my multitasking into overdrive. Of course I could prep for a Zoom meeting, make us lunch, and also field my daughter’s sight word flashcards. Because it was just what we all had to do. We were driven to inhumane extremes by circumstance, but for many of us, the pace of life hasn’t readjusted yet. 

But the two-handed juggle began long before that. I found that the best way to cope with a towering to-do list was to batch tasks up, clearing my evenings for “family time.” Work smarter, not harder, right? 

Predictably, I also found ways to fill that reserved family time with things that had to be done. I saw that I could rock my daughter while also meal-prepping tomorrow’s lunch. Why just watch another episode of The Office when I could also finish designing just one more banner ad as I watched? The more efficiencies I created to open up pockets of time, the less likely I was to utilize those pockets for rest. 

In the past few months, I’ve found that my usual strategies for managing time just haven’t worked. First of all, because time can’t really be managed. It’s inarguably finite, no matter how desperately we attempt to stretch it, and people are only able to do so much, even if we don’t like to admit to our own limitations (ahem). And secondly, because having a smoothly run life—without the downtime to enjoy it—didn’t actually feel all that good. It felt empty, in fact. 

I’d go to sleep at night and feel an initial buzz at the thought of all the things I accomplished that day. But then I’d just spiral into another list of other things to accomplish the next day. If I looked into the future, I saw one of those giant pill boxes open on a counter, with different colored pills slipping into each slot. Orderly, efficient, and … heartlessly mechanical. 

Studies show that multitasking is built on a fallacy: It presupposes a more efficient use of time, when in actuality, you’re giving less to each thing, which leads to incomplete or badly completed tasks. So while you may feel you’ve maximized your time, you are spending more time overall than you would have if you had just mono-tasked. Excessive multitasking leads to dissonance and a heightened sense of anxiety—the thing you are presumably trying to avoid in the first place. 

And honestly, most of us aren’t as good at it as we may think. If we’re reading a tab on the computer, then switching to text messages, then trying to go back to the article on the computer, each movement between tasks creates a lag time, referred to as a task switch cost, where our minds have to do reconnaissance to catch up to where we were. It’s like constantly restarting a dishwasher, instead of letting it cycle straight through. We may think we’re flying through tasks with ease, but our minds are likely more jumbled and frustrated than ever. 

With the advent of Slack and Teams—as well as phone notifications of course—our attentions are drawn in ever-divergent directions. It’s not just a bonus, but an expectation, to swiftly answer instant messages or texts as they come in, especially in some professional circles. To not multitask seems somehow sort of provincial, as if we haven’t properly adapted to the tech world. In reality, our brains are not evolutionarily equipped to multitask.

After watching my daughter insist on the validity of taking time to daydream—to play—I began to wonder if there was a better way of doing things. One that could leave my soul intact, while also helping me cope with the very real pressures of living in a capitalist society that does not often honor personhood.

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As an experiment, I put boundaries around a handful of moments where I was not, under any circumstances, allowed to multitask. If I was spending time with my W.G.—one-on-one time, not the hour when she’s watching another ‘90s animated Barbie movie, because I am human—I was not allowed to do anything but be present. If I was writing, I could not check my email. If I was calling a friend, I was not allowed to busy my hands with dishes in the background. When my husband was trying to talk to me in bed at the end of the day, I could not casually scroll Instagram in the background. The language here—”not allowed”—suggests restriction, but I found these edicts to be permissive guideposts or invitations to experience more deeply, like those reminders from an emcee to “turn off your phones and enjoy the show.”

I’m sure these sound like common sense regulations. But they were the first boundaries I ever articulated to myself around multitasking. Because for all my life, I’d been rewarded for multitasking. I was called a “high performer” and praised for my quick execution. Multitasking earned me promotions and awards, all kinds of pats on the head that left me panting for more. It didn’t make sense for me to stop chasing the validation I so heartily craved. 

What finally made sense, and created a will to change, was seeing a tangible erosion in my quality of life in the way I related to others and myself. I’d zone out of conversations. I would snap, “Just wait!” if W.G. were asking for something and I was “quickly replying to an email” only four minutes after it’d arrived in my inbox. It felt as if I were putting myself up to a performance review every single day, in which I had to prove my general worth. As if life is measured by how many things you check off a list, versus the unquantifiable moments that aren’t quite so easy to track. 

At first, my enforced mono-tasking was so much harder than I thought it’d be. I found myself blinking rapidly, just to keep my focus in one place. My whole body would itch to be moving around, doing something that needed to be done around the house—I could actually see a phantom version of myself folding laundry and placing it in drawers, like some really tiresome household ghost. But, like meditation, the mastery of focus comes only in repetition and practice. 

One afternoon recently, I was sitting with W.G. in front of her dolls, enacting a complicated scene about a mermaid who marries her dead fiance’s twin brother. I did not check my email, even though I could feel my mind drifting, my fingertips tingling to swipe up on my lock screen. So accustomed to the juggle, I struggled when I was left with just one ball to hold. In the back of my mind, I wondered, What if I’m missing something? But a stronger voice asked, What if you’re missing this thing? 

Then, W.G. said something about a prophecy hidden inside a pearl necklace, and I was back in the moment, crouched on the rug with my whole body activated, desperate to know what the fate of these mermaids would be. 

As with any obsession, it won’t be an overnight change. I’ll probably still multitask, because our society demands it, and because I really, really hate working out without distraction. But if I can hold just a few minutes in a day for myself, in a space that is atemporal, then I can carry my life with a little more confidence and, hopefully, a lot more joy.

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Recent Notables

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Reading

Books:

• Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor: Set among the vibrant, sometimes deadly world of Delhi, this book examines the lives of both the extremely wealthy and the extremely impoverished. Ajay wakes from a drunken stupor to find himself behind the wheel of a Mercedes, looking upon the bodies of the unhoused people he has run over. The story examines all the choices that lead to this moment, not only from Ajay, but from Sunny, a charismatic playboy with a deep melancholy, and Neda, a journalist who finds herself entangled in the lives of the privileged. This book stayed with me for a long, long time, and I found it to be a bleak but unforgettable look at humanity and ambition.

• Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey: Maggie is going through a divorce with her husband of 608 days with the help of nine hobbies, midnight burger deliveries, online dating, and of course, her active group text with her whip-smart and imminently tolerant friends. This book is a very funny, sometimes sad, look at what it’s like for your life to change suddenly. It’s very of-the-moment and reads as an extended comedy performance. I liked it, but it’s one of those novels that ground you in the moment, rather than transport you.

• The Cloisters by Katy Hays: Dark Academia fans will love this book that combines the mysteries of tarot with cutthroat art crimes that leave lives in their wake. I wanted more of the magic and history, as well as the character interiority, but I found it to be a quick and interesting read about the art world. 

Articles and Essays:

• “Why do rich people love quiet?” (The Atlantic): I have sensory issues, so quiet has always been a solace for me, but I was really fascinated by Xochitl Gonzalez’s discussions of noise and gentrification in Brooklyn.

• “Tired: Organized Fridges” (Jessica Grose’s NYT newsletter): Vibe is shifting back to messy, lived-in spaces. Yes, please.

• “You’re Not A Racist” (The Sun): Pithy and heartbreaking.

Loving

• This photograph really spoke to me; it holds so many stories. If you writers/artists/musicians are ever in a rut, photographs from this section of The Sun act as amazing prompts.

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