4 Tips to Quit Multitasking

It’s messing with your brain — and your happiness

整合自己想法的总结

​ 这里有四个方法去避免自己陷入并行处理的“陷阱”

1. 合理使用一些方法记录自己处理任务时的情况，是否频繁被打断而做其他事。
   这里相当于反馈与总结，让自己能够全局的了解到自己做一件事效率怎么样，如何做改进。

2. 关闭所有app通知。
   个人也完全推荐这一点，也是疯狂的实践者：

   1. 有两个微信号，一个工作，一个私人的。

   2. app很多通知我都会选择不提示不提醒，短信也一样。

   3. 如果遇到一些陌生的人也会直接设置拦截，外地固话响也不会接。

   4. 几乎所有应用权限都设置了一遍，不给弹窗。

   5. qq、微信各种群都是设置为“进入群助手且不提醒”的状态。

      所以手机一直保持轻轻酸爽的状态，只要响了，一定是重要的事。

3. 短时间内处理邮件。
   一般我个人工作邮件也不会打开，除非自己去看，所以是不会有提示的，并且尽可能在同一个时间批量处理邮件。

4. 一个舒适的环境
   学习，是一个需要深度思考的事，所以最好找一个安静的地方，能让自己独处在一个空间内，断绝任何干扰。

   以上是对英文的小总结，结合自己平时生活习惯的连接，下面是进入第二次思考。

​ 多任务处理，在上大学的时候，看到有一个朋友特别牛，电脑两个屏幕，一个屏幕在播电影，一个屏幕在玩游戏，手机放在面前又一个手游，三件事情同时处理，那个时候看到后，内心觉得很是钦佩，快速切换实现一次性处理三件事，看起来是挺高效的。

​ 这是针对一些轻松的事情，或者不需要更多思考方面就可以快速切换的处理，但如果需要深入思考，比如学习，思考某个问题，那么并行处理其他事情，比如再思考的时候，有一个电话打过来，或者突然看到一个兴趣的话题，就跳转到另外一个不相关问题的思考，会让我们效率低下 ，因为当我们在切换的时候，我们的大脑会花很多时间去重新集中注意力到新的事物上，我们的精力是有限的，频繁的切换，并不高效。

​ 这里有个比喻，我们的大脑就像是电脑的CPU一样，CPU也是通过快速的（时间足够短）切换处理每一条任务（我们正在做的事），看起来像是同时进行一样，但如果是计算密集型的任务（比如AI计算，这里类似于我们的深度思考，特别需要大脑的占用），那就不推荐频繁切换了，因为切换的代价太大，切换只会降低CPU处理任务的效率。

​ 在公司，我们也经常会遇到，一天内，一个重要的任务会疯狂被其他事打扰，比如说萌新的要去帮忙搬桌椅，工会代表临时要开会得去参加，接着小组站立会，帮实施组部署机子，上面的要求都是硬性要求还不能不参加，导致有时候有一些感慨，加班不是没有原因的，只有加班才有空闲的时间去思考代码怎么写，只有下班的时候才有时间想想今天的工作！

英语学习

• constantly 持续
• productive 高效
• estimated 预估的，估算
• restless 坐立不安
• distracted 分心分神
• grab 抓取，拿取
• urge 急迫的
• triggers 触发引起
• awareness 意识
• temptation 诱惑
• notifications 通知
• relocate 重新安排
• reserve 预约，储备

Credit: Nattapol Poonpiriya / EyeEm/Getty

I’m going to take a guess: You’re doing something else right now in addition to reading this article. Maybe you’re in a meeting, or working on a proposal, or walking on a treadmill, or listening to your mom on the phone telling you what she had for dinner. The point is you’re multitasking.

And why wouldn’t you, when busyness has become such a badge of honor? When we’re led to believe that we need to be “doing” something at all times, why stop at one thing? Why not go for two things in a single moment, or even three? With all the pressure to be constantly productive, it’s easy to forget about all the studies telling us that multitasking isn’t effective. But there are plenty of them: Research has shown that multitasking reduces productivity(every time you switch between tasks, it takes up to nine minutes to refocus on the original task), increases the rate of errors, and may even damage your brain. The estimated global cost of multitasking is $450 billion a year. It’s also making us sad.

Let me ask you some questions:

1. Do you ever feel restless?
2. Do you feel the urge to grab your phone every five minutes (or even less)?
3. Do you find it difficult to focus on just one thing?
4. Do your relationships suffer from your “distracted” behavior?

If you answered yes to all four, you might be addicted to multitasking. I was, too. But once I became aware of my behavior, I made a concerted effort to change. Here are my tips for how to follow suit.

Pay attention

For next few days, make note of when you’re dealing with more than one task at the same time. Do you tend to multitask more at certain times of day? When you’re doing certain types of tasks? Figure out what your triggers are — without awareness, we can’t change our behavior.

Turn off notifications for your nonessential apps

To reduce the temptation to split my attention, I’ve turned off notifications on almost all the apps on my phone and computer. The exceptions include calls, messages, reminders, calendar alerts, notices from my banking app, and warnings from my security cam app. Everything else is off. I’ve gotten rid of notifications for group texts, email, social media, and news.

Check email at a few set times

Unless you work in customer service, it shouldn’t be a problem to keep your email closed throughout the day. Choose a few set times to check your messages so you’re not doing it throughout the day while working on other things.

Relocate if necessary

Too many offices are distracting. If you can’t focus where you work, reserve a conference room for a half-hour each day. If you can’t do that, request to work from home one or two days a week. Do what you can to get to a physical space where you can focus.

When you quit multitasking, your mind gets stronger, so try to see all these tips as exercise for your brain. You can do it — one task at a time.

from： https://forge.medium.com/4-tips-to-quit-multitasking-190fbed54572