 So are we truly able to multitask? Is it true or is it a complete BS myth? In this video, we're going to break down multitasking via science and also talk about what you should be doing to increase your productivity. Let's get into it. All right guys, welcome to the MD journey channel dedicated completely to help students succeed on their journey with less stress. My name is Lux. I'm internal medicine physician and resident and training have been making videos just like this and we're releasing two videos to help students and people just like you. So if you are new to the channel, consider subscribing and hitting that notification bell as well as hitting the like button to help this video as well as this YouTube channel grow. Today I wanted to make a video all about multitasking and if there's a validity to it, it's true how you can do it and if it's completely false what you should be doing. An idea of multitasking has definitely come at risk in the over the last few years and people question whether it's actually valid and possible for a human to focus on more than one task at a time. Let's see what the science says. So initially it's been thought that our brains have enough capability to do multiple different complex tasks at once and we can think of many different examples of this. You know you can walk down the street while texting on the phone, although you shouldn't be. You can read a book while listening to the music. You can talk to somebody while you're working out. You know one of my favorite examples is think about when you're driving and then you become engrossed in your thoughts or a conversation or the music and suddenly you realize that you've made it to your destination. You know, where are you truly multitasking and how is your brain able to do that? So to understand the idea of multitasking or just doing a task in general, think of our brains kind of like a factory where you're going from idea all the way to creation. Each step along that journey from idea all the way to completion requires a different process that happens at various portions of our brain. So there's kind of a little bit of a checkpoint. If you think of each of these processes kind of a checkpoint, there's a little bit of a time delay for the part of our brains to process what the information is and then move it forward to different parts of our brain or our body. So for example, if there's the idea that you want to move your right arm, there's a thought that goes into your brain that sends signals to various portions and eventually gets into the muscle fibers in your fingers and your arms to cause the movement. At the same way, when we look at each task from the moment that we tell ourselves we want to do it to the time that we complete it or actually start executing it, there is a time delay at each process. And it's believed and it's been shown in a study in Science by Coach Lin and his team, where basically that a human may be able to process one idea into completion for a task. Maybe even two, they found some individuals in their study who were able to do two different tasks and use two different parts of their brain without interfering with each other. As soon as they added a third task into the mix, their brains simply weren't able to keep up and their performance decreased dramatically. So is multitasking possible? Probably in some sense, but probably also not in the sense that many of us think in the terms of productivity. So for example, many of us think that we may be great at multitasking when we have our emails, multiple tabs as well as our score opened up on our home computers. And while you may be able to go from your email response to going back to studying to rechecking your email and social media, you're probably not multitasking, but instead doing what we call multi switching. And a good way to understand is is now think of your brain as kind of like a roller coaster where each diversion of your attention is kind of a movement of a left or a rapid movement to the right for your brain and your focus. Similar to the roller coaster, it's not smooth. It's not natural. Your brain actually requires a good amount of energy to divert the focus you currently have and somehow create it for your new task. And in fact, they found that individuals who are multitasking can actually spend 40% more time focusing. So while you may be able to get some things done, you actually may be dropping in your performance because you have to regain your attention and your focus to the initial task that you're working on. And before you berate me in the comment section, I promise to you, I also consider myself initially to be a multitasker. I thought I was productive because I could do multiple things at once, but I realized that multitaskers actually have a tendency of being less productive, spending more time and also have less performance and retention on things such as exam. And this goes back to the idea that again, we have to spend so much extra time focusing when we divert our attention in our mental roller coaster from left to right or task to task. There's actually a phenomenon called the Duning Kruger effect, which essentially says that sometimes we give ourselves a little bit more credit than we ought to get. So sometimes you may consider yourself to be more productive because you're multitasking when in reality, your performance actually may be lower than if you chose to do each of those tasks individually. So when we break the science down, it looks like multitasking overall and the desire that we have to do multiple things at once is probably a myth. But now the next question is what should you do and how should you fix it to increase your productivity? Now, if you're somebody who likes to move from task to task, that may be an indication that perhaps you're easily distracted or disinterested in the current tasks that you're working on. So a good recommendation would be to actually shorten your work hours for each specific task. So instead of maybe 15 minutes at a time, you may want to say, I'm going to work on my next study project or a project for work for 15 minutes. I'm going to give myself a five minute break and somehow divert my attention. Now this process is going to require you to take your big tasks like a school project and break it down into something that may be manageable in 15 minutes. Otherwise you run into the problem of losing your focus and momentum. So make sure that the tasks that you pick for these shorter time blocks are actually more appropriate. Now tip number two to improve your productivity and improve how much you get done is to try to reach peak performance through dedicated practice. Now one of my favorite books that I read on this process is inspired by one of my favorite authors, Cal Newport. It's actually a book called Peak, which essentially looks at different individuals. This includes high performers like famous musicians or athletes. Basically asked the question, how did it get to being so good in their time where it looks like almost like they have a natural gift. And they found that these individuals became so good by focusing on one small skill at a time over a long dedicated period of focus. So for example, take the basketball player Ray Allen, which is considered to be one of the best three point shooting and shooters in history of basketball. And most people have this belief that a shooting form is actually a God given talent or something that he was born with from day one. But in fact, Ray Allen himself will tell you that he was actually a terrible shooter in his early days. And the reason that he's one of the best is because he spent focused periods of time throughout his career and his various forms of training to get better at that one skill. And the reason I bring this up is not to help you become a Hall of Fame basketball player, but instead to teach you idea that if you instead diver, I'm doing multiple tasks at once to instead doing one skill that you really want to master such as perfecting the knowledge for an upcoming exam or perfecting a skill for your current occupation or job, you can truly see the most benefit and performance in a short amount of time. And tip number three, if you're having trouble multitasking that may indicate that you may have to do a better job and find an effective system to improve your time management as well as planning. This way you can instead take each of those tasks that you would divert your attention to and have a specific block throughout your day and week dedicated specifically to it. Now personally teach a concept called time blocking and one of my productivity courses called time mastery, which is made for students on the MD journey.com, which you guys can check out if you want more help with your time management as well as improving your efficiency. But understanding that whatever system that you pick, taking the steps to making sure that every bit of time in your day and your weeks are scheduled will allow you to avoid desire to jump from one task to another. With that being said guys, hopefully you guys enjoyed this video saying about the truths and myths of multitasking and saying ways that you can be more efficient and working kind of with your brain's capability of handling multiple tasks. And before you leave, if you did enjoy this video, make sure again you hit that like button if you haven't done so already. We're putting out two videos just like this one on a weekly basis, so go ahead and also consider hitting that subscribe button as well as notification bell. And like I mentioned, if you are interested in learning more about our courses or our blog posts, go ahead and check out the links down below. But I'll also go ahead and link one of my favorite playlists to increase your productivity as a student. Hopefully that helps you increase your efficiency and get more done without the need for multitasking. With that being said guys, thank you guys so much for making it to the end and watching this video. Hopefully I've been a little help to you on your journey. Thanks for being a part of mine. See you guys in the next one. Peace.