My desk looked like a digital warzone. Three monitors, each with a different application clamoring for attention. On the left, a Slack channel was blowing up about a critical bug. In the middle, my IDE glowed, half-written code staring back at me. On the right, I had a YouTube tutorial playing in the background, ostensibly for 'passive learning' while I worked. Oh, and my phone was buzzing with personal texts. I was trying to fix a bug, reply to Slack, absorb some new JavaScript framework, and quickly answer my mom about dinner plans. It was... a lot.
For a long time, I actually thought this was my superpower. I genuinely believed I was one of those rare people who could juggle five things at once and somehow come out ahead. I’d be in a meeting, drafting an email in my head, while also glancing at a PR review. I’d start coding a new feature, then remember a tiny bug fix I could squeeze in, then switch to that, then remember I needed to respond to a comment on a ticket. It felt busy. It felt productive. My calendar was packed, my Slack notifications were a constant stream, and my brain felt like a hyperactive pinball machine.
But here’s the thing, and maybe you’ve felt this too: feeling busy and actually doing things are two very different animals. I was making more mistakes. Simple typos in emails, logical errors in my code that I’d have caught normally, forgetting important details from conversations that happened five minutes ago. My mental state was perpetually frayed. I’d finish a workday feeling utterly exhausted, like I’d run a marathon, but when I looked back, the actual, tangible output felt... puny. I was spending more time context switching, basically moving my brain from one thing to another, than I was actually focusing on any single task.
One particularly bad day, I shipped a change that completely broke a minor part of our user authentication. It wasn't a showstopper, thankfully, but it was embarrassing. And totally avoidable. I’d been trying to get a quick fix out the door while simultaneously brainstorming a new feature with a colleague over voice chat and, I kid you not, trying to decide what to make for dinner by scrolling through recipes on my phone. The bug was tiny, just a missed else statement, but it was a direct result of my brain being everywhere and nowhere all at once. My 'superpower' had just created extra work and a bit of a headache for the team.
That was a bit of a turning point for me. I started to notice how much extra energy it took to constantly pivot. How much more tired I felt. I didn’t suddenly become a zen master of focus, far from it. My brain still wants to hop around like a caffeinated frog. But I started consciously trying to do one thing at a time. Just one. Close all the tabs, silence the notifications, pick a task, and try to stick with it for a dedicated chunk of time.
It felt weirdly slow at first, almost like I was moving through treacle. Like I was underperforming because I wasn't doing three things simultaneously. But then, things started to click. My code quality improved. I was catching mistakes before they shipped. My emails were clearer. And, surprisingly, I felt less drained at the end of the day, even though I was actually getting more meaningful work done.
I even stumbled onto an article that really laid out what was happening behind the scenes, explaining why all this bouncing around was so costly. It wasn't just me being bad at managing my time, there was actual science to it. If you're curious about the deeper dive, you can find it here: https://healthpartner.shrynshjn.com/blog/single-tasking-vs-multitasking
It’s still a work in progress, this whole 'single-tasking' thing. My phone still buzzes, and Slack still pings. But now, when I feel that familiar urge to switch, to open another tab, to try and squeeze in 'just one more thing,' I pause. I remind myself that sometimes, the most efficient way to get things done is to just do the one thing, properly, and then move on. It’s less flashy, sure, but it's a whole lot less messy.
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