Context switching: the hidden productivity killer that ruined my year
Image via Kaboompics .com
For the past year, I’ve been finishing my working day with a sense of dissatisfaction and frustration. A whole day gone with very little to show for it.
Tasks that used to take mere hours lasted all day. Turnaround times started to lengthen, and concentration was at an all-time low.
I had no idea why this was happening.
Could this loss of focus and concentration be a pandemic thing?
Perhaps I just didn’t get any joy from my work anymore?
Or maybe, just maybe, something else was afoot.
Looking back, I’m fairly certain option three was the cause and that ‘something’ I was sensing? That was context switching at work.
This post is inspired by The Imperfectionist newsletter by Oliver Burkeman. He tipped me off to this time-sucking, attention-killing black hole of a habit. And now I’m here to tell you, just in case you’re suffering like I was.
Context switching…we’re comin’ for ya!
What’s context switching, and why does it suck?
According to our good friends at Atlassian, ‘context switching’ is an excessive cognitive load caused by repeated task switching. In layman’s terms: brain frazzle caused by repeated task hopping.
Now, don’t get me wrong — I like to have a mix of tasks in my day. I prefer to keep my high-effort tasks for the morning and my low-effort tasks for the afternoon because that’s what suits my brain.
Context switching is a little different, though. It specifically refers to the process of changing tasks multiple times in a single day, jumping from deep-think tasks to lighter ones in the space of minutes.
For example, you could be elbow deep in the guts of a blog post, only to be interrupted by a 30-minute client call about a different project. You go back to your blog post only to get a notification from LinkedIn that a recent post has gained traction, so you nip over there to fire off some replies. Then you’re back to your blog post, only to have someone email you for a new job quote. Then back to your blog post again.
Yiiiiikes, my guy.
This was the real killer for me. Never being able to plunge deeply into a task and fully immerse myself in it. Never having the concentration to stay on track or work in a structured way.
I was nipping over to Slack, Discord, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I was checking emails, answering calls. Popping over here to schedule a post or note an idea.
Forever interrupting myself and finding a distraction.
No wonder satisfaction evaded me. No wonder everything took twice as long.
The good folk over at Qatalog and Cornell University’s Idea Lab published a joint paper that showed the damage context switching can do to your noggin. According to their research, it takes almost 10 minutes to get your head back in the game after you’ve swapped a task.
So (in theory!) if you swap tasks three times in an hour, you’ve lost a full 30 minutes of work time. That’s 50% less work.
Ouchies.
Our brains have a set capacity for how much info they can hold at any given time, and context switching pushes it to the max.
Furthermore, 43% of people admitted to feeling fatigued by context switching, and 45% felt less productive.
It’ll get ya if you let it!
Here are a few ways to kick the habit — tried and tested (as always) by me.
⚡️ Pomodoro, baby!
Time to get saucy. Tomato saucy.
Nah, for real — the Pomodoro Technique is it for anyone wanting to lock their focus in.
For those not in the know, the Pomodoro Technique is a timer-based method, which repeats a cycle of timed work sprints and rest periods.
You set a timer for 25 minutes and work until it rings. Then you set a timer for five or ten minutes of rest, then back to your 25-minute work sprint.
Rinse and repeat until all your work is done.
Although you can find pomo timers on the internet (this is my fave), I’d recommend the beautiful ambient videos on YouTube. My favourites are…
Yes, your life is changed forever.
You’re welcome.
⚡️Limit social media usage
No duh. 🤪
Social media is one of my biggest inbound marketing platforms, making it even harder to avoid. Cutting back on it could literally harm my revenue.
Having said that, it’s a massive time-sucker, and I’ve become ever so slightly addicted to notifications. Even though I like to think I’m better than that.
I now set time windows for my social visits. It’s a reward for finishing a draft or completing a task rather than a way to intermittently break my Orinoco Flow.
I also rely more heavily on scheduling platforms like Buffer to make sure I’m still hitting the promotional social content, but in structured blocks of time rather than bitty chunks.
⚡️Try task batching
I touched on this in my post on finding a schedule that works for you. It’s basically the process of lumping together all your most similar tasks, like editing, meetings, ideation etc.
Although you may be moving between different clients, the task type remains the same, reducing your cognitive load.
It’s not an approach I enjoy, but it’s definitely a good way to combat context switching-based mental sludge.
⚡️Call yourself out (nicely)
Tempted to open your email tab or pick up your phone in the middle of your task? Channel the Spice Girls and “stop right now, thank you very much”.
Recognise when you feel that irresistible pull to break focus and get your head back into the game. If you’re using Pomodoro, promise yourself a little peek during your rest period, but don’t be tempted to skate off into another task. You can write up that quote when you’ve finished this first draft or when you come back from lunch.
Remember — it’ll take you at least 10 minutes to get back in the zone if you leave, and you risk ending the day feeling fried.
Have you fallen victim to context switching? Got any of your own tips to add? Find me on Twitter and let me know!
