This is a new one for me !
This is a new term for me, but I'm hugely guilty of this thing - apparently referred to as Context Switching. Anyone heard this term before?
Context switching—shifting focus from one task to another—might seem harmless, but research says otherwise. It’s NOT multitasking, and it comes at a huge cost. I’ve felt the impact of this productivity killer firsthand:
- It destroys efficiency.
- It stifles growth.
- It steals time!
A study from Carnegie Mellon University found that adding just ONE more project to your plate can drop your productive time by 20%. Add another project? That’s 40%. Another? 60%. The more we juggle, the less we actually accomplish. Time is the one resource we can’t get back, yet we waste so much of it by constantly switching gears.
To beat context switching, you don’t need a complicated system—you need a simple, actionable daily plan.
I personally do find that when I have a daily To-Do list created ahead of time for what I plan to work on that day - I get more done with less self-imposed distractions.
What about you? Do you have some sort of daily plan for what you're going to work on?
Recent Comments
8
Hahaha... fishing in different ponds
And catching no fish...
🤪
Bad pond
Bad stick
No Fish
Or is it
Too much ponds
Too much sticks
Too much fish
And no time indeed
All so true...
Find your pond, stick and fish
Or swim
🏊🏊🏽♀️🏊🏊🏽♀️🏊🏊🏽♀️
I often lose a lot of time switching.
I am working on staying with one thing until it is completed.
I think it became easier to switch with AI. As Kyle said, you finish quicker, and that gives me time to consider other things. Often, I end up hopping here and there, getting nothing done.
So I am back to working on staying with projects until they are done. And for me, it is an effort to do this. I have a squirrel tendency.
Your article makes me more aware of the time I am wasting.
Thanks,
Sami
I think one thing we have that is working for us now is our ability to finish tasks quicker. The foolery is thinking we can do many things at the same time, when in reality we have a tough enough time chewing gum and walking, let alone trying to perform tasks in paralell.
Have a list of tasks, and knock them off one by one. If you don't finish a project and move onto something else, it is in an incomplete state and that can be looped back to later on. Just don't think that because we have 20 tabs open in our browser, that we are doing more work than someone with one tab, one focus. That simply is not the case.
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You got me, Mary! My bad. I have this tendency for sure. I have to make lists. When I use my list, I get so much more done :)
I used Kyle's AI task to have my Chat make me a Life Optimizer spreadsheet. It needs more tweaking, but it worked really well.
Teri
Oooh, great idea to have Chat do that!