Last post When old habits are hard to abandon… I’m looking at you procrastination was eye opening. For some reason, I always believed that being “multi-tasker” was engraved in my system. I even felt proud of it. I could face many tasks at work or while writing without any problems. I even used as one of my qualities (whenever I needed to talk about myself, my strengths,etc… case point: CVs). This happened until many days ago, when for some miracle, I landed on the Coursera course: Learning how to learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects. If you ever have time to check this free online course (which you could also pay if you want a certification), then do it. The course suggestion came to my email inbox the same day I wrote about my procrastination/multi-tasker post. And surprise, surprise: It turns out being multi-tasker is not as good I as thought it was. In fact, it’s not good at all.
I’m not going to go into specifics in the course. Besides, I still have a couple of lessons that I still need to go through in this course. But so far, it’s been one of the best courses I’ve taken through this platform. Going straight to the point: multi-tasking only burns you out, it stresses you, it makes you slower, it lowers the quality of your work, and tires you faster. But it can be changed. And since I’ve started this new plan to reprogram my brain from its default multi-tasking mode or even close to some sort of attention deficit disorder, my capacity to focus and concentrate has grown exponentially. My writing tasks are back on track again and with good perspectives!
There are tons of courses, methodologies, articles online about this topic. Many great sources of information. If you’re looking to get rid of procrastination, improve the quality of time you spent on your important tasks (writing, I’m looking at you), then I suggest you get rid of any multi-tasking habits. I’m looking forward to polishing these skills, and maybe in some weeks time, to be able to say I finally left procrastination in the past.
The diaries of the happy writer 
I have a problem with the concept of multitasking. How does the human brain do this? In my estimation, it can’t be done. The brain can be taught to think faster, but that still isn’t thinking about more than one thing at a time. The brain can be taught to switch focus gears fast, but again, that’s not thinking of more than one thing at a time.
This technical age has us trying to think so fast and switch so many gears that I seriously doubt that we’re absorbing any knowledge to the point where we can realistically retain it. How many people in today’s society can remember everything they did the day before without looking at their planner or task list?
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Yeah, what I learned is that we actually don’t multi-task as we think we do. We jump from task to task multiple times. And our brain takes some time to adjust to each task. We also need some time to enter a focused state where we can actually be effective. So when we “multi-task” (although we don’t) our brain consumes more energy than necessary and we don’t even reach that productive stage. In fact, our brain produces more dopamine which acts like a drug (addictive) and fakely rewards us each time we seem to do a “mini task” and jump to the other one. In the end, we waste valuable energy, more cortisone is produced (what causes stress) and we’re not even being 100% focused. The whole science behind this is fascinating, and it seems that I’m a fact-driven person since all this explanation easily convinced me 🙂 You’re absolutely right, by switching from task to task, we’re not absorbing as we are supposed to and our memory is not improving at all. Thanks for stopping by 😉
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