Daniel Levitin 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.

There's no such thing as multitasking.

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

Your conscious brain cannot multitask. If I'm speaking to you and checking my I-Phone at the same time, I'm doing neither. This is why our society is frazzled; this misconception that we can consciously do more than one thing at a time effectively.

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

Multi-tasking arises out of distraction itself.

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

If you're studying from a book and trying to listen in on a conversation at the same time, those are two separate projects, each started and maintained by distinct circuits in the brain. Pay more attention to one for a moment and you're automatically paying less attention to the other.

In effect, dividing your attention means that neither (or none) of the things you're working on is really getting the full effect of your intelligence, and that it in the end takes you longer than it would if you did one thing at a time.

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

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.

I never realized it until I watched an interview, but sometimes my brain stutters between thoughts, and for some reason it comes out as an 'ummmm.' I'm hoping it's because I'm so smart, and there's just too much information to process, but it's more than likely just because it's a small processor.

People's minds are overloaded with information.

No more than a surgeon can operate while tweeting can you reach your potential with one ear in, one ear out. You actually have to reacquaint yourself with concentration. We all do.

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.

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.

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

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

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 multitask and always have the TV on in the background. If I need to focus, I generally have to turn off the TV.

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.

You wouldn't read 'Anna Karenina' and try to work on the computer at the same time, would you?

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.