Sendhil Mullainathan Quotes

I'm not very good at multi-tasking. Most people aren't, but they think they are. The mind is really better when you're really focused on one thing.

The conscious mind can only pay attention to about four things at once. If you've got these nagging voices in your head telling you to remember to pick up the laundry and call so-and-so, they're competing in your brain for neural resources with the stuff you're actually trying to do, like getting your work done.

...consciousness can keep only a few images in full clarity at one time, and even this clarity fluctuates.

Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.

Good performance is about the capacity to focus and concentrate.

Don't buy into the 20-hours-a-day entrepreneur myth. You need to sleep 8 hours a day to have a focused mind.

I just want to focus on one thing at a time.

Thinking is hard work. One can't bear burdens and ideas at the same time.

I'm a big believer in minimalism. Not materialist minimalism, although that's part of it, but time and energy minimalism. The body is given only so much energy a day.

If you cannot concentrate, you are not so happy.

Maybe I am a bit unusual here, but I am less stressed if I have my phone with me. Because I can spend like an hour in the morning taking care of everything instead of I sit there and wonder what I missed or wonder what's happening. So it's way less stressful for me to just answer my phone.

I make time to exercise. It's not being indulgent. I think it's got a lot to do with your ability to manage properly and stay focused. There's no doubt about that.

Experts say you can't concentrate on more than one task at a time.

Those who have least to do are generally the most busy people in the world.

Multi-tasking arises out of distraction itself.

I need one psychological expert to help me concentrate.

Time is a resource whose supply is inversely proportional to its demand.

If you try to multitask in the classic sense of doing two things at once, what you end up doing is quasi-tasking. It's like being with children. You have to give it your full attention for however much time you have, and then you have to give something else your full attention.

I don't have time to be negative.

Even though we think we're getting a lot done, ironically, multitasking makes us demonstrably less efficient.

I do creative visualisation techniques in the morning. It's only 15 minutes. I used to do hours and hours of it, but I found that 15 minutes has really helped me, and it's not time-consuming at all.

I think a lot of women, especially ones that want to achieve career goals, tend to worry. I don't want anyone to worry their life away - time goes by so fast, and worry is really wasted time and energy.

They say multitasking is a female trait, but it's not about gender; it's about personality type.

We used to think that you could pay attention to five to nine things at a time. We now know that's not true. That's a crazy overestimate. The conscious mind can attend to about three things at once. Trying to juggle any more than that, and you're going to lose some brainpower.

I don't waste my time doing my head in about stupid things that don't really matter and don't waste time worrying over nothing.