Multitasking: Does It Make You Super-Productive, or Lower Your IQ Instead?

If you’re working in a highly demanding role, you’re probably guilty of the most common form of multitasking—interrupting your work to check and respond to emails. But does this make you super-productive?

In Your Brain At Work Dr. David Rock writes: “A study done at the University of London found that constant emailing and text-messaging reduces mental capability by an average of ten points on an IQ test. It was five points for women and fifteen points for men. This effect is similar to missing a night’s sleep. For men, it’s around three times more than the effect of smoking cannabis.”

While you’re toggling between tasks, it may seem that you’re saving time. What actually happens is that your brain is switching attention from one task to another, slowing down your ability to get any of them done.

Neuroscientist Earl Miller warns that multitasking is also detrimental to your ability to think creatively. For example, when you interrupt writing a proposal for your client to check an incoming email, your brain has to spend valuable energy to refocus on the initial task.

Not only does it take time to reach the same level of focus you experienced before the interruption, but your ability to think creatively plummets. When you’re switching and backtracking between tasks, you’re not likely to come up with something original because innovative thinking requires extended concentration.

Therefore, do yourself and your brain a favor and consider these tips:

1) Block out periods of time to focus and remove all distractions during that time—put away your phone and turn off your email notifications. If your work doesn’t allow you to be completely off, set up the incoming notifications in a way that you’ll receive only emails you can’t ignore (for example, you can set up a filter to receive notifications only from your boss).

2) When you absolutely have no other choice but to engage in multitasking, Dr. David Rock offers the following advice:

• Make a conscious decision that you’ll multitask only for a limited amount of time (e.g., checking your emails during the meeting at 4 p.m. because the meeting isn’t that relevant for your area of work).

• To minimize your mental effort, identify tasks in your daily work for which you can introduce a routine—for example, the way you delete emails or store documents in folders. When you do these activities on autopilot, you’re saving your brain’s energy.

For example, if you’re brushing your teeth and thinking about the best restaurant for your partner’s surprise birthday party, you won’t overwhelm your brain as much as when you’re trying to figure out the best restaurant for the party and the best name for the conference you’re organizing. That’s because brushing your teeth is something you do automatically without much thought; thus this activity doesn’t require a lot of your brain’s energy.