Multitasking – One of the worst enemies of productivity

There’s something most entrepreneurs do every single day — and they don’t even stop to question it. They answer messages while building proposals. They take calls while reviewing numbers. They jump between tasks, tabs, and conversations before 9 am. And at the end of the day, they feel like they gave everything.

But the results don’t match the effort. And that gap — that quiet, frustrating gap — has a name.

In this article you’re going to learn why multitasking is one of the biggest enemies of your productivity, what science actually found about what it does to your brain, how it’s affecting your business without you realizing it, and what focused entrepreneurs do differently to get real results.

Originally published: January 21, 2016 — Updated: April 2026

QUICK ANSWER
Multitasking reduces productivity because your brain cannot focus on multiple tasks simultaneously. Instead, it constantly switches between tasks — a process called task-switching — which lowers performance, increases errors, and wastes time you can never recover.

TL;DR
Multitasking is not productivity. It’s constant self-interruption dressed up as efficiency.

The Day I Realized I Was My Own Worst Enemy

There’s something most entrepreneurs carry with them every single day — and they wear it like a badge of honor.

They respond to messages while walking, eating, or while doing any activity. They take calls while checking social media accounts. They jump between tabs, tasks, and conversations, all before 10am. And at the end of the day, they look at everything they touched and think: I was productive today.

I know because I did it too.

For years, I believed that doing more things at once meant I was ahead. That the ability to juggle ten things simultaneously was what separated serious entrepreneurs from the rest. I was moving fast, always busy, always “on”.

But something didn’t add up.

Despite all that movement, the results weren’t matching the effort. Important projects took longer than they should. Decisions felt foggy. Creative work suffered. And I ended most days exhausted — not from accomplishing things, but from the sheer mental cost of switching between them constantly.

It took me a while to understand what was really happening.

I kept myself busy, but I wasn’t being productive. And there is a massive difference between the two things.

The Lie We’ve All Been Told

Let me ask you something honest.

Have you ever been in a conversation — really in it — and read a message on your phone at the same time, only to realize you didn’t absorb either one?

Have you re-read the same paragraph three times because your mind was already somewhere else?

Have you driven while talking on the phone, completely convinced you were in control?

We’ve all done it. And worse — we’ve all believed it was fine. That’s the real problem. Not that we do it occasionally. But that we’ve accepted it as normal. We’ve built our entire work culture around the idea that doing many things at once is a sign of capability.

But here’s the truth that no one wants to say out loud:

Multitasking doesn’t exist.

What actually exists is task-switching. Your brain jumps from task A to task B and back to task A — again and again — at a cost. Every switch costs you time. Every switch costs you clarity. Every switch costs you a piece of your best thinking.

And you can’t get any of it back.

In a few words: Every time you switch tasks, your brain pays a price. Those prices add up — and they come out of your best work.

What Science Actually Found
(And Why It Should Stop You Cold)

This isn’t a simple opinion. This is what researchers discovered when they actually studied what multitasking does to the human brain — and the findings are uncomfortable.

Studies have shown that people who drive while talking on the phone perform at levels comparable to drunk drivers. Not slightly distracted. Not mildly impaired. Comparable to someone who has been drinking alcohol.

Think about that for a moment. We call it ‘just a quick call.’ We do it without a second thought. And yet, the data says something very different about what’s happening inside our brains in that moment.

But the research goes further.

David Strayer, a psychology professor and co-director of a brain research laboratory at the University of Utah, put it bluntly: the brain can only process one thing at a time. When we attempt to do multiple things simultaneously, we’re not actually doing them in parallel. We’re rapidly removing attention from one task, shifting it to another, processing it briefly, and jumping back. Over and over.

To test this, Strayer ran an experiment with Petrus Venter — a man considered to have one of the greatest multitasking capacities in the world. The kind of person you’d look at and think: if anyone can do it, he can.

Venter was placed behind the wheel of a vehicle navigating a controlled course full of obstacles. At the same time, a researcher spoke to him through headphones, asking questions that required basic cognitive attention.

What happened was exactly what the science predicted.

As the questions became more complex, his driving deteriorated. His answers became less accurate. His performance on both tasks dropped simultaneously. The man considered an exceptional multitasker couldn’t escape the fundamental limitation that applies to every human brain — including yours and mine.

In a few words: Even the best multitasker in the world fails when the brain is pushed to do two things at once. This is not a personal weakness. It’s human biology.

The Myth We Built Around “Doing It All”

Here’s what makes this even harder to fix.

We don’t just tolerate multitasking. We celebrate it.

In our culture, the person who handles twenty things at once is called a hero. They’re called efficient. They’re called the kind of entrepreneur you should aspire to be. We’ve put this habit on a pedestal and worshipped it — without ever asking whether it was actually delivering results.

In fact, it has become practically the norm for many companies to require in job descriptions that candidates applying for certain positions be able to multitask.

Even computers — the fastest information-processing machines ever built in the world — don’t actually multitask. They execute one operation at a time. The only reason it looks like simultaneous processing is because they do it at extraordinary speed.

We looked at that illusion and copied it into our lives. We told ourselves: if I move fast enough between tasks, I’ll look like I’m doing everything at once.

But speed without focus is just chaos with good intentions.

And the cost of that chaos is higher than most entrepreneurs realize. Research has shown that chronic multitasking doesn’t just slow you down temporarily — it can measurably lower your cognitive performance while you’re doing it. In the moment you feel most “on top of things,” your brain is actually operating below its real capacity.

In a few words: The culture rewards busyness. But busyness is not the same as results. And the sooner you separate the two, the sooner everything changes.

What Happens to Your Business When Multitasking
Becomes the Default

This is where it gets personal.

Most entrepreneurs and business owners I’ve worked with don’t struggle because they lack effort. They work incredibly hard. They’re the first ones in and the last ones out. They care deeply about what they’re building.

But they struggle because effort without focus doesn’t compound. It scatters.

When multitasking becomes your default operating mode, here’s what actually happens inside your business:

You react instead of executing.
Every notification, every message, every “quick question” pulls you out of what matters. You spend your day responding to the urgent — and the important never gets touched.

Your best work never gets done.
Deep work — the kind that moves a business forward — requires sustained, uninterrupted attention. Multitasking makes that impossible. You end up with ten things half-done instead of one thing done right.

Decisions get worse.
When your brain is constantly switching, it never reaches the depth of focus needed to make clear, confident decisions. Everything feels harder than it should.

You burn out without the results to show for it.
This is the cruelest part. You end the day exhausted — genuinely, deeply tired — but without the feeling of real progress, because you were busy all day, not focused.

In a few words: Multitasking doesn’t just hurt your productivity. It slowly erodes the quality of everything your business produces — and the energy you have left to lead it.

The Real Solution Is Simpler Than You Think
(But Harder Than It Sounds)

Here’s what I’ve learned — both from research and from working with entrepreneurs directly.

The solution to multitasking is not a new app. It’s not a productivity system with twenty steps. It’s not a morning routine or a time-blocking template, although those tools can help.

The solution is a decision.

Yo have one task. Complete it. Move on.

That’s it. And it sounds almost too simple to be worth saying. But the fact that it sounds simple is exactly why most people don’t take it seriously — until they actually try it consistently and feel the difference.

Here’s how to start making that decision real:

Protect your focus before it gets stolen.
Turn off notifications. Put your phone face down or out of reach. Create a work environment that signals to your brain: this is time for one thing. Focus is not something that appears on its own — it’s something you defend.

Train your attention like a muscle.
Your ability to concentrate deeply is not fixed. It responds to practice. Every time you resist the urge to switch tasks, you’re building capacity. Every time you give in, you’re making it harder for next time. Start with focused blocks of 25 to 45 minutes. Build from there.

Bring your mind to where your body already is.
One of the quietest forms of multitasking is mental absence — being physically present in one place while your mind is already somewhere else. Thinking about tomorrow’s meeting while you’re in today’s. Worrying about a problem while you’re trying to create something. Practice returning. Every time you notice your mind has left, bring it back. That return is the work.

Where This Connects to How You Run Your Business

Now let me take this one level deeper — because this isn’t just about personal productivity habits.

This is about your business system.

That’s where a clear brand and business system changes everything.

When you know exactly what your offer is, who it’s for, and what the next step should be at any moment — focus becomes natural. You stop reacting and start executing. You stop spreading your energy across twenty directions and start concentrating it where it actually produces results.

This is the foundation of how I work with clients through LFStudio. Not just building a brand — but building the clarity that makes focused execution possible. Because a business without focus isn’t a business. It’s a very expensive hobby that keeps you exhausted.

Is This You Right Now?

Before you move on, take thirty seconds and answer these honestly:

• Do you check your phone while working on something important?
• Do you have five or more tabs open right now that you’re “getting to”?
• Do you end most days feeling busy but not sure what you actually finished?
• Do you find it hard to sit with one task for more than fifteen minutes without switching?

If you answered yes to any of those — you already know what needs to change.

The good news is that focus is not a personality trait you either have or don’t. It’s a skill. It’s trainable. And the entrepreneurs who master it don’t just become more productive — they become impossible to compete with.

In a few words: The real winners are not the busiest people in the room. They are the most focused. And focus, unlike talent, is available to anyone willing to practice it.

The Focused Entrepreneur Wins

Multitasking is not a skill. It never was.

It’s a habit built on a lie — the lie that doing more things at once makes you more capable, more valuable, more successful. But the data doesn’t support it. The research doesn’t support it. And if you’re honest, your own experience doesn’t support it either.

The moment you stop trying to do everything at once — and start doing one thing completely — everything shifts. Your work gets better. Your decisions get clearer. Your energy goes further. And the results you’ve been chasing start to actually appear.

The real hero is not the person who juggles twenty things and somehow keeps them all in the air.

The real hero is the person who knows exactly what matters most right now — and gives it everything they have. That’s the entrepreneur who wins. Not the busiest one. The most focused one.

And that can be you ─ starting today.

Ready to Build a Business That Actually Works
With Your Focus?

If this article made you realize that the problem isn’t effort — it’s structure — then the next step is worth taking.

Schedule a free diagnostic session with us.

In that conversation, we’ll look at where your time and attention are actually going, what’s fragmenting your focus at the business level, and how to build the clarity and structure that makes focused execution your default — not your exception.

No fluff. No pressure. Just clarity.

👉 [ Schedule your free diagnostic session here. ]