Two big projects, a book to write, a podcast to host, editing responsibilities, several freelance assignments and this column meant I was overworked and exhausted. With multiple deadlines converging, I needed a serious productivity boost. Take control of your brain’s master switch to optimise how you think Obviously, instead of getting on with the work, I started researching how to become more productive.
Could I boost my attention, time my work to align with my body clock or somehow coax my brain into an ultra-productive state? What I found was a myriad of myths, some intriguing science and some very counterintuitive results. In 2004, Gloria Mark at the University of California, Irvine, and her colleagues found that people spent just over 2 minutes on screen-based or paper tasks before switching to a different activity.
Between 2016 and 2020, her data showed this had dropped to around 47 seconds. WhatsApp messages and emails are my personal Achilles heel, so my first instinct was to turn off those notifications. Interestingly, that might not necessarily increase how much work I produce.
In a 2008 experiment, Mark and her colleagues asked 48 people to do an HR email task three times, once without any interruptions and twice while interrupting them every few minutes. Participants actually finished their work faster without any more mistakes when they were interrupted compared with when they were left alone. However, the catch was that they experienced more stress, frustration and perceived effort.
It seems we can compensate for interruptions by speeding up in the short term – but at a psychological cost. Interruptions are one thing, but what about purposefully juggling more than one task at once? Multitasking is a skill I tend to consider useful for my productivity.
There’s a lot of research that [shows] this makes us less productive.” When we jump from one task to another, leaving the first unfinished, part of our attention remains on it, creating what Sophie Leroy at the University of Washington Bothell calls “attention residue”, which can impair performance on whatever we do next. The supplement that really can improve your brain health I’ve often read that it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to regain focus after you switch tasks – it’s a stat that gets rolled out any time multitasking or distractions are mentioned on social media. Happily, the reality isn’t so dire.
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