Interlude: Multitasking, Feedback, and Significant Results
Do you tend to think you're good at multitasking?
I think that many of us like the idea of multitasking. We dream of juggling many different tasks so that we can accomplish more in less time.
But multitasking is a fallacy. Your brain is wired to process only one task at a time. So when you think you're multitasking, you're actually switching between tasks over and over.
When you switch your attention from one task to another, you incur the cognitive switching penalty. Your brain spends extra time and energy adjusting to the context of each task as you switch tasks. And the more tasks you juggle, the more your ability to do each task well suffers.
How can you avoid the cognitive switching penalty? Use strategies that help you focus on one task at a time. Here are a few of my favorite strategies.
Turn off all notifications. You can even log out of messaging and social media apps. The additional step of needing to log back in will help you resist the temptation to take a quick peek.
Put your phone on Do Not Disturb mode. Better yet, put your phone in a different room. Just having your phone nearby reduces your cognitive capacity.
Batch communication tasks. Rather than spend 10 minutes every hour replying to emails, dedicate a block of 30 minutes each day to process emails.
What strategies do you use to avoid the cognitive switching penalty?
Now onto this week's round-up...
💌 Round-up
💻 From My Desk
When to Use Continual vs Continuous
Some authors use the term continuous as a synonym for continual. Although these terms may seem similar, their definitions have important nuances that distinguish their meanings.
👓 Reading
Writing to Think
"Writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Of course, you can learn a lot about something without writing about it. However, writing about something complicated and hard to pin down acts as a test to see how well you understand it. When we approach our work as a stranger, we often discover how something that seems so simple in our heads is explained entirely wrong."
The role of results in deciding to publish: A direct comparison across authors, reviewers, and editors based on an online survey
“Our findings suggest that statistically significant findings have a higher likelihood to be published than statistically non-significant findings, because (1) authors…are more likely to write up and submit articles with significant results compared to articles with non-significant results…; (2) reviewers…give more favourable reviews to articles with significant results compared to articles with non-significant results…; and (3) editors…are more likely to accept for publication articles with significant results compared to articles with non-significant results…”
🎧 Listening
How to Master the Difficult Art of Receiving (and Giving) Feedback - The Tim Ferriss Show
In this podcast interview, Sheila Hein and Tim Ferris give great insight on writing. They share their thoughts on how writing communicates with the reader's internal voice, how writers need to meet readers where they are, how to ask for feedback on writing, and much more. If you don't want to listen to the full 2.5-hour episode, listen from about 24:00 to 55:00 to get the most valuable nuggets of writing wisdom.
📝 Experiment
The next time you sit down to write, turn off your notifications for 1 hour and notice how your focus and productivity improve.
Thank you so much for reading.
Warmly,
Crystal
