--- title: The Myth of Multitasking: Why Having Fewer Priorities Leads to Better Work description: We need to say no to being busy and say yes to being committed to our craft canonical: https://time.com/3833139/multitasking-myth/ author: James Clear article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-04-30T12:00:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T06:37:24.897Z article:section: Ideas og:title: The Myth of Multitasking: Why Having Fewer Priorities Leads to Better Work og:description: We need to say no to being busy and say yes to being committed to our craft og:url: https://time.com/3833139/multitasking-myth/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte4a6e6db3dc4bc49/6987ec8bcd1bba5a586f91cb/72724308-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=479&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 479 og:image:height: 269 og:image:alt: missing-darts og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Myth of Multitasking: Why Having Fewer Priorities Leads to Better Work twitter:description: We need to say no to being busy and say yes to being committed to our craft twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte4a6e6db3dc4bc49/6987ec8bcd1bba5a586f91cb/72724308-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=479&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Myth of Multitasking: Why Having Fewer Priorities Leads to Better Work > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [James Clear](https://time.com/author/james-clear/) ## James Clear Apr 30, 2015 12:00 PM UTC  Red and blue darts in wall around red, white and blue dart board Red and blue darts in wall around red, white and blue dart boardGetty Images by [James Clear](https://time.com/author/james-clear/) ## James Clear Apr 30, 2015 12:00 PM UTC The word _priority_ didn’t always mean what it does today. In his best-selling book, [Essentialism](http://jamesclear.com/book/essentialism) ([audiobook](http://jamesclear.com/audiobook/essentialism)), Greg McKeown explains the surprising history of the word and how its meaning has shifted over time. --- > “” --- ### The Myth of Multitasking Yes, we are capable of doing two things at the same time. It is possible, for example, to watch TV while cooking dinner or to answer an email while talking on the phone. What is impossible, however, is _concentrating_ on two tasks at once. Multitasking forces your brain to switch back and forth very quickly from one task to another. This wouldn’t be a big deal if the human brain could transition seamlessly from one job to the next, but it can’t. Multitasking forces you to pay a mental price each time you interrupt one task and jump to another. In psychology terms, this mental price is called the switching cost. Switching cost is the disruption in performance that we experience when we switch our attention from one task to another. A [2003 study](http://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/email-multitasking-study.pdf) published in the International Journal of Information Management found that the typical person checks email once every five minutes and that, on average, it takes 64 seconds to resume the previous task after checking your email. In other words, because of email alone we typically waste one out of every six minutes. While we’re on the subject, the word _multitasking_ first appeared in 1965 IBM report talking about the capabilities of its latest computer. That’s right, it wasn’t until the 1960s that anyone could even claim to be good at multitasking. Today, people wear the word like a badge of honor as if it is better to be busy with all the things than to be great at one thing. ### Finding Your Anchor Task Doing more things does not drive faster or better results. Doing better things drives better results. Even more accurately, doing one thing as best you can drives better results. [Mastery requires focus and consistency](http://jamesclear.com/stay-focused). I haven’t mastered the art of focus and concentration yet, but I’m working on it. One of the major improvements I’ve made recently is to assign one (and only one) priority to each work day. Although I plan to complete other tasks during the day, my priority task is the one non-negotiable thing that must get done. Here’s what my current weekly schedule looks like… * Monday – Write article. * Tuesday – Send two emails (one for networking, one for partnerships.) * Wednesday – Write article. * Thursday – Write article. * Friday – Complete weekly review. * Saturday – OFF * Sunday – OFF The power of choosing _one_ priority is that it naturally guides your behavior by forcing you to organize your life around that responsibility. Your priority becomes an anchor task, the mainstay that holds the rest of your day in place. If things get crazy, there is no debate about what to do or not to do. You have already decided [what is urgent and what is important](http://jamesclear.com/eisenhower-box). ### Saying No to Being Busy As a society, we’ve fallen into a trap of busyness and overwork. In many ways, we have mistaken all this activity to be something meaningful. The underlying thought seems to be, _“Look how busy I am? If I’m doing all this work, I must be doing something important.”_ And, by extension, _“I must be important because I’m so busy.”_ While I firmly believe everyone has worth and value, I think we’re kidding ourselves if we believe being busy is what drives meaning in our lives. In my experience, meaning is derived from contributing something of value to your corner of the universe. And the more I study people who are able to do that, people who are masters of their craft, the more I notice that they have one thing in common. The people who do the most valuable work have a remarkable willingness to say no to distractions and focus on their one thing. I think we need to say no to being busy and say yes to being committed to our craft. What do you want to master? What is the one priority that anchors your life or work each day? If you commit to nothing [you’ll be distracted by everything](http://jamesclear.com/mental-toughness-marathon-monks). _James Clear_ _writes at JamesClear.com about building better habits and improving your mental and physical performance. For more useful ideas,_ [_join his free weekly newsletter_](http://jamesclear.com/newsletter)_._ _This piece originally appeared on_ [_JamesClear.com_](http://jamesclear.com/multitasking-myth)_._ _More from JamesClear.com:_ * [Transform Your Habits: The Science of How to Stick to Good Habits and Break Bad Ones](http://jamesclear.com/habits) * [The Physics of Productivity: Newton’s Laws of Getting Stuff Done](http://jamesclear.com/physics-productivity) * [The Only Productivity Tip You’ll Ever Need](http://jamesclear.com/productivity-tip) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3833139/multitasking-myth/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3833139/multitasking-myth/"},"headline":"The Myth of Multitasking: Why Having Fewer Priorities Leads to Better Work","datePublished":"2015-04-30T12:00:04.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T06:37:24.897Z","description":"We need to say no to being busy and say yes to being committed to our craft","url":"https://time.com/3833139/multitasking-myth/","keywords":["Psychology","productivity"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte4a6e6db3dc4bc49/6987ec8bcd1bba5a586f91cb/72724308-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"James Clear","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/james-clear/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte4a6e6db3dc4bc49/6987ec8bcd1bba5a586f91cb/72724308-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"missing-darts","caption":"missing-darts","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/psychology/","name":"Psychology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3833139/multitasking-myth/","name":"The Myth of Multitasking: Why Having Fewer Priorities Leads to Better Work"}}]}] ```