From his "Year of Living Biblically"
A.J. Jacobs is an excellent journalist that I first fell in love when I was a voracious reader of magazines back in the states — He as a contributing editor for Esquire, me as a silly undergraduate. Dude’s a method writer. He puts himself through sometimes bizarre situations and writes about them — like that above.
His newest book is called “My Experimental Life” and a chapter in the Guardian UK resonated with me. Here’s an excerpt.
Our hopscotching brains make us more depressed (it’s harder to focus on the positive), less able to connect with people and form a conscience. And it’s an insane delusion. Multitasking makes us feel efficient, but it actually slows down our thinking. Our brains can’t handle more than one higher cognitive function at a time. We may think we’re multitasking, but in fact we’re switchtasking, toggling between one task and another. The phone, the email, the phone, back to the email. And each time you switch, there’s a few milliseconds of start-up cost. The neurons need time to rev up.
Apparently, multitasking costs the US economy $650bn a year. I’m starting to think this isn’t a problem along the lines of love handles or bad mobile phone service. This is the 11th Plague.
Ironically, I read this while walking through my school in between classes. He goes on to explore the differences in productivity and mental health that come with multi- versus uni-tasking. Like the wisdom Carla awakened us to, “When you walk, walk; when you eat, eat.”
Over the past few days I’ve tried to put this into practice. With the help of my amazingly intuitive (and intuitively amazing) sister I’ve begun meditating. Yesterday I ran for the first time in decades. I’m making an hour every day for what I’m most passionate about: writing. Such a valuable lesson. Do, simply.
A new maxim: When you feel your mind stretched, online or off, close a few tabs.
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