You read that title correctly.  The myth of multitasking.  As a culture we have convinced ourselves that we increase our productivity and effectiveness significantly when we multitask.  We read each email when it comes in (and we have a special sound to announce its arrival!). We respond to emails and texts while we’re in meetings or on the phone.  We juggle emails, texts, calls while we are also tackling our day-to-day responsibilities and projects.  We jump from task to task believing that we are accomplishing so much more while we “multitask”,

but . . .

We are neither increasing our productivity nor our effectiveness!  Here’s the realty, from a study at The Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London.  When you multitask, your IQ falls 10 points! This is the same loss you'd experience if you had missed an entire night's sleep.  So much for being more productive!

I appreciate this quote from neuroscientist and MIT professor Earl Miller:  "People can't multitask very well, and when people say they can, they're deluding themselves...The brain is very good at deluding itself."

Have you been deluding yourself?  “To do two things at once is to do neither.”  Publilius Syrus