The more attention we try to pay to everything, the less discerning we become. But when we focus, we get better at concentrating—and remembering what we did. We feel less exhausted. So monotasking—focusing on one task at a time—isn’t only more efficient; it also leaves us better able to use the knowledge we have gained.
Those who consistently attempt multitasking find it harder to ignore irrelevant information and take longer moving between tasks—in other words, for all their frantic activity, they’re actually wasting time. And because the brain’s competing memory systems store information differently, whatever is retained is harder for the multitasker to recall. While these energetic minds might feel that they’re on top of the world of information, in reality they are at its mercy.