Nurses’ Note:
Just say no…to multitasking!
Your brain will thank you.
The multitasking myth is a seductive one: Scanning news headlines, writing a report for work, paying bills on your banking app, texting your sister, checking email — it’s easy to bounce from one to the other and convince yourself you’re getting so much done. In truth, multitasking is the very opposite of efficient. Research has shown that multitasking reduces productivity by up to 40 percent, and a new study explains why. Using a special type of scan, researchers recently looked at the brain activity of a group of people watching movies. When they watched 6 .- minute segments, areas of the brain that synthesize separate events into a cohesive whole worked well. When the movies were fragmented into 50-second segments, these areas functioned poorly. In other words, your brain works better when you tackle one thing at a time! In our hyper-connected world, it takes discipline to break the multitasking habit, but give it a try for a few days — or even a few hours — and see how you feel. Rather than trying to juggle work-related tasks with checking email and news, or grocery shopping and talking on the phone, or eating lunch while texting friends, do one thing at a time. Be patient with yourself, and think of it like rebuilding a muscle — your attention muscle. If you hear a faint cheer, that is your brain shouting, “hooray!”
https://www.clevelandclinicwellness.com