The Curse of Being Good at Too Many Things

I think being good at handling many things can actually become a problem.

For a long time, I saw it as one of my strengths. Wow, I can watch TV and do my homeworks and at the same time i am upside down on the couch. How cool is that?!

I like learning different things. I like working on several projects. I get bored when I only have one thing to do for too long. So naturally, I end up doing a lot at the same time.

Right now, for example, I might be studying for a course while deploying a new version of my website. At the same time, I am writing this blog post, thinking about what I want to work on next, and somehow already planning my evening in my head. And I am like: Man, having double screen is so cool.

And honestly, sometimes it feels pretty cool.

I think, “Okay, I can actually handle all of this.”

But recently I started wondering whether I am actually handling all of it.

Or whether I am just touching five things without really giving any of them enough attention.

Five things at 20%

This is probably the simplest way I can explain it.

Let’s say I have five important things to do.

It is tempting to think:

“I will just work on all five. Maybe 20% on each. At least everything is moving.”

But what if that is not really how it works?

What if I am not doing five things at 20%?

What if I am constantly switching between five things and losing a little bit of concentration every single time?

There is quite a lot of research around this. What we casually call multitasking is often actually task switching. Instead of doing two demanding things at exactly the same time, our attention moves back and forth between them.

Rubinstein, Meyer, and Evans (2001) found measurable performance costs when people switched between tasks, especially when the tasks became more complex.

That sounds obvious when you think about it, but I don’t think we notice it much in everyday life.

Because switching itself feels so small.

I check something quickly.

I answer a message.

I open my code.

I go back to my lecture.

I get an idea for the blog.

I write two sentences.

Then I remember something else I wanted to do.

Nothing feels catastrophic.

But after enough switches, I realize that I have been busy for two hours and still haven’t really gone deep into anything.

Your brain doesn’t always leave the previous task behind

One of the things I found interesting when reading about this was the idea of attention residue.

Sophie Leroy (2009) described how, when we switch away from an unfinished task, part of our attention can remain stuck on the previous task.

I recognize this way too well.

I might be studying, but I am still thinking:

“I need to check whether the deployment worked.”

Then I switch to the deployment.

While looking at the website, I remember:

“I still haven’t finished the blog post.”

Then I go back to writing.

And while writing:

“Wait, wasn’t I supposed to study?”

Technically, I am working the whole time.

But mentally, I am carrying all the unfinished things with me.

That is probably one of the biggest problems with having too many things open at once.

The tasks don’t just sit on a to-do list.

They stay in your head.

The weird part is that it can feel productive

This is probably the part I find most interesting.

Multitasking often doesn’t feel bad.

It can actually feel productive.

You are always doing something.

When one task becomes boring, you can switch to another one.

When studying gets difficult, you can work on your project.

When coding gets frustrating, you can write something.

When writing stops, you can start planning something else.

There is always a way to escape the uncomfortable part of the current task.

And then you can finish the day feeling like:

“I worked on six different things today.”

But maybe the better question is:

“What did I actually finish?”

Because being busy and making progress are not necessarily the same thing.

I don’t think multitasking is always bad

I also don’t want to turn this into one of those articles that says:

“Multitasking is always terrible. Just focus on one thing.”

Real life is not that simple.

Some activities work perfectly fine together.

I can listen to a podcast while walking.

I can wait for something to deploy while reading something else.

I can do simple administrative tasks while listening to a lecture.

The problem starts when both things require my full brain.

Trying to deeply understand something while also answering messages is different from listening to music while cleaning my room.

The more mentally demanding the tasks are, the more expensive switching becomes.

And that is probably the distinction I was missing.

The problem isn’t having many things in my life.

The problem is asking my brain to seriously work on all of them right now.

Maybe the real problem is too many open loops

I think there is another reason this happens, especially when you are curious and ambitious.

You keep starting things.

You learn something about AI, so you start a project.

You become interested in finance, so you start researching something there.

You want to improve your coding, so you build another application.

You want to write more, so you start a blog.

You have university.

You have applications.

You have personal stuff.

And suddenly you don’t really have a motivation problem.

You have an everything-is-interesting-at-the-same-time problem.

That can actually be harder.

Because there are always ten things that you could be doing.

The uncomfortable truth

Sometimes I think the ability to handle many things makes it harder to notice that you are spreading yourself too thin.

Because you can keep going.

You can answer the message.

You can push the code.

You can read the lecture.

You can write the paragraph.

You can make the plan.

Nothing completely falls apart.

But maybe “nothing fell apart” is not the same as “I did my best work.”

And I think that is the part I am slowly understanding.

Sometimes I don’t need to become more productive.

I need to become better at not doing things.

At least for a while.

Maybe one thing deserves 100%

This is the idea I am trying to take with me.

Instead of thinking:

“How many things can I manage today?”

I want to ask:

“What actually deserves my full attention right now?”

Maybe I can still have five projects.

Maybe I can still be interested in ten different topics.

Maybe I can still have a university life, personal projects, career plans and random ideas that I want to explore.

I don’t have to give those things up.

I just don’t have to give all of them my attention at the same time.

Because five things at 20% might look impressive.

But sometimes one thing at 100% is what actually moves you forward.

And I think that is something I want to get better at.

Not doing less because I am lazy.

Doing less at the same time so I can do more of it properly.

Funny enough, I am writing this while studying for a course and thinking about a website deployment.

So apparently I still have some work to do.

P.S.: Be good at at least one thing really, in the worst case: you will be making life out of it :)

References

Leroy, S. (2009). Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 109(2), 168–181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2009.04.002

Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 107–110. https://doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357072

Rubinstein, J. S., Meyer, D. E., & Evans, J. E. (2001). Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27(4), 763–797. https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.27.4.763