Sendhil Mullainathan Quotes

Task switching is hard because we do not control what is on our mind. Despite our efforts, the original task continues to occupy our mental bandwidth. Although we can control where our time goes, we cannot fully control how our bandwidth is allocated.

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

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

Multi-taskers often think they are like gym rats, bulking up their ability to juggle tasks, when in fact they are like alcoholics, degrading their abilities through over-consumption.

It requires a strong mind to bear up against several languages. Some persons have learnt so many, that they have ceased to think in any one.

When we are forced to do multiple things at once, not only do we perform worse on all of them but our memory decreases and our general well-being suffers a palpable hit.

When you think you're listening to several conversations at once, they tell me, you may really simply be time sharing - that is, listening a little bit to this one, a little bit to that one.

There's no such thing as multitasking.

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 think people who multitask pay a huge price. They think they're being extra productive, and I think when you multitask so much you don't have time to think about anything deeply, you are giving the world an advantage you shouldn't do, and practically everybody is drifting into that mistake.

What it turns out is that we think we're multitasking, but we're not. The brain is sequential tasking: we flit from one thought to the next very, very rapidly, giving us the illusion that what we're doing is doing all these things at once.

I think that we get so distracted with our smartphones... It takes your body and your brain time to switch between tasks. If we can focus on what we're doing, we'll be more productive at that task.

Multitasking divides your attention and leads to confusion and weakened focus.

I do think to some extent multitasking is a way of fooling ourselves that we're being exceptionally efficient.

Most of the work on multitasking suggests that it generally makes you less efficient, not more.

What looks like multitasking is really switching back and forth between multiple tasks, which reduces productivity and increases mistakes by up to 50 percent.

Two languages in one brain? No one can live at that speed!

You'd think people would realize they're bad at multitasking and would quit. But a cognitive illusion sets in, fueled in part by a dopamine-adrenaline feedback loop, in which multitaskers think they are doing great.

My brain doesn't have enough time to play around like that. To get limber enough to have a nightmare.

I think women are really good at multitasking. Men just cannot do it.

I used to listen to 'Woman's Hour' every morning, but I've discovered that I can't have words on when I'm working.

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

I can't do too much of one thing, or I get very distracted.

It seems like I'm thinking 400 hours a day; that's kind of how it feels.

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.