Single-Tasking: How to Do One Thing at a Time Again
Here's an uncomfortable truth: we're not actually multitasking. We're switching between things very fast and paying a tax every time. Each switch costs a little focus, and by the end of the day you feel busy and strangely empty — like you did a lot and finished nothing.
Give the one thing a home
Single-tasking is hard because everything else is a glance away. So make the one thing more present than the distractions: put it on paper, in front of you — not a to-do list of twenty items, one thing, written down, staring at you. Open a layflat notebook, write the thing you're doing right now, and leave it in view.
Start it, and end it, deliberately
A task drifted into gets abandoned; a task begun gets finished. Make a coffee to open the block — the cup is the signal that this is focus time, not scroll time. And give it a clear stop: lighting a candle to close the session works surprisingly well, a small “that's enough” cue.
And the obvious one
Put the phone in another room. I know. But nothing else here matters if it's within reach — it's the single biggest source of the switching tax. One thing, written down, phone away, a clear start and a clear stop. It feels slow for about a day, and then it feels like getting your attention back.
Featured in this article
