Why Multitasking Is Ruining Your Brain (And How to Fix It) – With Johann Hari
A New Way of Being
Simon Mundie
4.8 • 523 Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2024
⏱️ 9 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The cost of constant distractions and how to get your focus back. In this episode, we explore the huge cognitive cost of constantly checking your phone and how it impacts your ability to focus and perform at your best. My guest is Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus, who sheds light on the “switch cost effect” – the mental toll of constantly switching between tasks. Johann explains how multitasking lowers your IQ in the short term, even more so than smoking weed, and offers simple steps to rediscover the joy of focus.
One of these steps is pre-commitment, a strategy that involves binding your future self to stay on task. We also discuss how focus is the gateway to achieving flow, the state in which we feel and perform at our peak. In a world that’s increasingly demanding our attention, it’s more important than ever to find ways to reset, refocus, and get back into flow.
To help with this, I’ve created a free mini-course to help you beat burnout and improve your focus. In just a few minutes a day, I share proven techniques to help you reset and find that much-needed flow. This course is available for a limited time, and I would love for you to join me and let me know what you think.
JOIN HERE: https://www.simonmundie.com/free-burnout-mini-course
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | multitasking isn't just a myth it comes at a huge cost and that cost is our ability to focus |
| 0:11.5 | now when we can't focus we can't get in flow the state where we perform and feel our best |
| 0:17.5 | i spoke about this with johan harry Stolen Focus, and what he had to say |
| 0:23.2 | was eye-opening. Now, this is such a universal issue right now, and I have created a free |
| 0:29.1 | mini-course to help you beat burnout and find flow. In just a few minutes a day, I share proven |
| 0:35.1 | methods to help you reset, refocus and boost your creativity. |
| 0:40.4 | It is only available for a limited time and I would love for you to join and let me know what |
| 0:45.9 | you think. The link is in the show notes. Here is Johann Harri. |
| 0:52.5 | One of the ways that I came to understand this was when I went to interview a guy called Professor |
| 0:56.1 | Earl Miller, who's at MIT, he's one of the leading neuroscientists in the world. |
| 1:00.2 | And he said to me, there's one thing you have to understand about the human brain more than |
| 1:03.6 | anything else. |
| 1:05.0 | You can only think about one or two things consciously at a time. |
| 1:08.6 | That's it. |
| 1:09.4 | This is a fundamental limitation of the human brain. |
| 1:12.3 | The human brain has not significantly changed for 40,000 years. I ain't going to change on any |
| 1:16.4 | time scale you and me are going to see you can only think about one or two things at a time. |
| 1:20.3 | But we've fallen for a mass delusion. The average teenager believes they can follow six or |
| 1:26.3 | seven forms of media at the same time. |
| 1:28.3 | So what scientists do is they get people into labs and they get them to think they're doing |
| 1:31.6 | lots of things at the same time. And what they discover is in fact you can't do that. |
| 1:36.5 | What happens is you juggle very rapidly between those tasks. You focus, refocus, refocus, refocus, |
... |
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