One study found that distraction lowers productivity by 20 percent.11 It’s even worse if we’re working on challenging mental tasks—distractions then can slow our thinking by almost half.12 Several studies have shown that multitasking itself is a distraction. It is incompatible with the peak-concentration states that are associated with high performance and quality work.13 When people multitask, they cannot focus fully on the task at hand because their brain is still processing their last unfinished task.14
