Samuel Johnson 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.

Multi-tasking arises out of distraction itself.

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.

My attention span is very short.

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.

Even today, I am easily distracted by reading material and will pick up articles on virtually any factual material if I have the time.

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.

The mind is easily distracted; it loses its focus and becomes restless. If it is not directed positively, its power will be diffused.

It comes down to a question of attention: it's difficult to use the Net distractedly, unlike the television or the radio.

The average human attention span was 12 seconds in 2000 and 8 seconds in 2013. A drop of 33%. The scary part is that the attention span of a goldfish was 9 seconds, almost 13% more than us humans. That's why it's getting tougher by the day to get people to turn the page. Maybe we writers ought to try writing for goldfish!

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.

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.

A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

I feel like my competition is everything else that's competing for people's attention, not just other print magazines, newspapers and cable. It's your kid's report card and the games you want to play, all the things that compete for people's time.

I sometimes got distracted easily and allowed my mind to wander when I needed to be focused. It's quite subtle, really, and just being aware of it helps.

I'm more of a visual person, but I think that reading's extremely important. But I'm very easily distracted. It takes certain books to really grab you in.

Human language... prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand.

People only have so much attention.

As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.

While you're writing, you can't concentrate nearly as well on what the speaker is saying.

It's hard to watch something go on and be talking at the same time.

There's no such thing as multitasking.

It’s very difficult to stay alert indefinitely.

The only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.