Why is multitasking not a good idea?

Thinking that multitasking works is pure illusion. Our brains can only consciously perform one task at a time. If you try to answer an email while on the phone, what's actually happening is that your attention is constantly jumping from one thing to the other, meaning you're not actually doing both tasks in parallel, but rather rapidly switching between them.

Each of those countless attentional shifts costs energy and time. In other words, it ultimately consumes more time than it would take to do one thing after another. Furthermore, trying to do several things at once generates more errors, and correcting them takes more time, which in itself is valuable.

Therefore, if you write an email and make a call at the same time, it's a typical example of a workday. We think we can do both simultaneously, but that's not true, because in the end, the whole thing takes much longer than doing one thing first and then the other.

The idea is to have few distractions, a clear structure, and frequent breaks are essential to be able to work as much as possible. Nowadays, in the digital age, we are exposed to constant distractions, whether through emails, texts, or calls.

Some things you can do:

- Eliminate as many sources of distraction as possible, this means turning the phone off or on airplane mode and ideally placing it face down so that we are not looking at the screen.

- Set your email software settings so that it doesn't automatically notify you every time an email arrives, but rather so that it does so on demand. That way, we'll be the ones who decide when we're ready to receive something new.

- Take a 10- to 20-minute break every 90 minutes, consisting of going for a short walk, eating a mindful snack, doing a couple of physical exercises, some yoga, listening to music, or dancing. Naps of 15 to 20 minutes also provide a lot of new energy in a short amount of time.

Identify what the distractions are

Each of us knows the most tempting sources of distraction, whether it's WhatsApp messages from friends, an email, or a colleague checking in on us. If you identify what's distracting you from what you're doing, you can do something to stop it.

And what's the best way to refocus after an interruption, such as a phone call?