There’s actually no such thing as multitasking (that is, simultaneously processing two or more attention-demanding tasks), because our brains can’t do two cognitively demanding things at once.* When we think we’re multitasking, we’re actually doing what researchers call “task-switching”. Like cars making sharp turns, our brains need to slow down and switch gears every time we stop thinking about one thing and engage with another – a process that has been estimated to take twenty-five minutes every time you do it.
