The Multitasking Myth

Humans cannot multitask

By Alexandre Boucher - Unsplash

Multicosts of Multitasking.
Cerebrum

This article explores the cognitive and neurological implications of multitasking, emphasizing that true multitasking—handling multiple tasks simultaneously—is largely a misnomer, as the brain switches between tasks rather than performing them concurrently. Key brain networks, such as the frontoparietal control, dorsal attention, and ventral attention networks, are involved in managing task-switching demands, but their capacity is limited. Task-switching results in performance costs, including slower response times and reduced accuracy. Media multitasking, prevalent in today's attention economy, exacerbates cognitive challenges, with heavy media multitaskers often underperforming on tasks requiring sustained attention, working memory, and impulse control. Despite potential benefits in creative problem-solving, multitasking generally imposes cognitive trade-offs. Future research aims to address causality, brain mechanisms, and potential contexts where multitasking might yield advantages, offering insights into optimizing cognitive performance in a media-saturated world.


Multitasking: Why Your Brain Can't Do It and What You Should Do About It (Radius, MIT)
Here’s practical advice from a neuroscientist: Don’t try to multitask. It ruins productivity, causes mistakes, and impedes creative thought. Many of you are probably thinking, “But I’m good at it!” Sadly, that’s an illusion. As humans, we have a very limited capacity for simultaneous thought -- we can only hold a little bit of information in the mind at any single moment. You don’t actually multitask, you task-switch. This wastes time, makes you error-prone and decreases your ability to be creative. I am going to tell you why and what you can do about that.

Think You're Multitasking? Think Again (NPR)
Don't believe the multitasking hype, scientists say. New research shows that we humans aren't as good as we think we are at doing several things at once. But it also highlights a human skill that gave us an evolutionary edge.

Hard Truths to Muddle Through Tough Times

Here are today's quotes. Once again, there seems to be an underlying theme of impending doom. Perhaps that's a bit of an extreme take—or perhaps not.

Yaounde, Cameroon - no real connection to the content here. I just liked the photo and wanted to share.

1. Keith Payne, The Broken Ladder
   "When people escape an impoverished background, they, too, are gone forever in a sense. Even if they return, they think differently, speak differently, and even eat differently. A family member once told me she didn’t want to set up education funds for her children because people came back from college as atheists. And what good is increased earnings potential when compared to eternal damnation?"
   Goodreads

2. Stuart Brown, M.D. & Christopher Vaughan, Play
   "When we stop playing, we stop developing, and when that happens, the laws of entropy take over—things fall apart. Ultimately, we share the fate of the sea squirt and become vegetative, staying in one spot, not fully interacting with the world, more plant than animal. When we stop playing, we start dying."
   Goodreads

3. Li Yuan, China’s Police Are Preying on Small Firms in Search of Cash
   "The money grabs are a sign of just how financially desperate local governments are. The country’s housing market has unraveled. Income from land sales, which used to make up about a third of local government revenue, fell by nearly one-third last year from the peak in 2021, according to the finance ministry."
   The New York Times

4. Washington Post, What Canada’s Carbon Pricing Ruling Says About the Global Struggle Against Climate Change
   "Climate action is rife with problems—from free riders to dissenting ideology, to science denialism, to domineering capital interests, and beyond." (i.e., it is a wicked problem)
   Washington Post

5. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen
   "On one issue, the strongman has been consistent: his drive to control and exploit everyone and everything for personal gain."
   Goodreads

Climate Action: Indicators of Progress

Bouygues Construction has partnered with Ecocem to use its low-carbon ‘ACT’ cement, which reduces CO2 emissions by 70%. After rigorous testing at facilities in France and a full-scale mock-up, Bouygues will evaluate the cement's performance under typical site conditions. Ecocem’s ACT technology, launched in 2022, replaces 70% of traditional clinker with alternative materials, marking a significant step in construction sector decarbonization. Ecocem is expanding its production capacity, with a U.S. factory planned.

Bouygues agrees to use low-carbon cement brand after testing it

Global Construction Review

Decline is a Choice

 

More at: https://substack.com/home/post/p-154885743

Just the Quotes...

There was an old TV show from the 1950s or 1960s about a police detective called Dragnet. The main character, Detective Joe Friday, was known for his famous line: "Just the facts, ma'am." He used this phrase to steer his interviewees away from speculation or personal opinions and back to the point. Today, I will share "just the quotes," even though it’s Tuesday and not Friday.

Quotes

"the idea of shifting from one attractor to another. When we talk about participation in this way we are describing a social process by which people take action and others either reject it or move towards it. If it is resonant enough – which means that it must be appropriate, work, and be meaningful to people's lives – then it will act as an attractor. As we discovered in the last chapter, in order to change the dynamics of system, it is necessary to create alternative attractors – deeper underlying shifts in perceptions, relationships, and attitudes, to provide foundations for new points of convergence to emerge. Once these reach a critical mass, tipping points occur which allow a shift in the pattern of social relationships to a new attractor." (Danny Burns and Stuart Worsley, Navigating Complexity in International Development)

"In Frederick Douglass’ 1869 speech “The Composite Nation,” he defends Chinese immigrants and says that he believes we're going to become a multiracial, multiethnic democracy one day. For a former slave to be saying that is what makes America unique, and is equally part of America's story." (Anand Giridharadas, Ro Khanna Wants Progressives to Embrace Patriotism, Aspiration, and Experimentation)

"The spiritual journey involves going beyond hope and fear, stepping into unknown territory, continually moving forward. The most important aspect of being on the spiritual path may be to just keep moving." (Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart)

“If you do not understand your role in the problem, it is difficult to be part of the solution.”
– David Peter Stroh

“Addiction is finding a quick and dirty solution to the symptom of the problem, which prevents or distracts one from the harder and longer-term task of solving the real problem.”
– Donella H. Meadows

We have created trouble for ourselves in organizations by confusing control with order.”
– Margaret J. Wheatley

“Yet we act as if simple cause and effect is at work. We push to find the one simple reason things have gone wrong. We look for the one action, or the one person, that created this mess. As soon as we find someone to blame, we act as if we’ve solved the problem.”
– Margaret J. Wheatley

“There are no separate systems. The world is a continuum. Where to draw a boundary around a system depends on the purpose of the discussion.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems

“We can't impose our will on a system. We can listen to what the system tells us, and discover how its properties and our values can work together to bring forth something much better than could ever be produced by our will alone.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking In Systems: A Primer

“Let's face it, the universe is messy. It is nonlinear, turbulent, and chaotic. It is dynamic. It spends its time in transient behavior on its way to somewhere else, not in mathematically neat equilibria. It self-organizes and evolves. It creates diversity, not uniformity. That's what makes the world interesting, that's what makes it beautiful, and that's what makes it work.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking In Systems: A Primer

“a system must consist of three kinds of things: elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose.”
― Donella H. Meadows, Thinking in Systems: A Primer

The World Will Forever Seek to Mold

These quotes, while seemingly disparate, collectively explore themes of identity, power, and transformation—both personal and societal. Together, they form a narrative about how individuals and groups navigate systems of control and self-perception, often wrestling with forces that seek to define them, whether externally or internally.

Quotes

---

"Trying to change ourselves doesn’t work in the long run because we’re resisting our own energy. Self-improvement can have temporary results, but lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion." (Pema Chodron, The Places That Scare You)

"the rightness of fascism does not depend on the truth of any of the propositions advanced in its name. Fascism is “true" insofar as it helps fulfill the destiny of a chosen race or people or blood, locked with other peoples in a Darwinian struggle, and not in the light of some abstract and universal reason." (Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism)

"That’s a very working-class attitude. I’m not comfortable with people with power. I’ve always been intimidated by people like deans. I let them push me until I come back too strong and ruin the relationship." (Alfred Lubrano, Limbo)

Pulling the Quotes Together

Compostion

Reflective

Within each of us lies a quiet pulse, an ancient rhythm that resists the sharp edges of control. As Pema Chodron reminds us, true transformation is not a war waged against our own being but a tender act of recognition—a bow to the wisdom already flowing through our veins. To force change, to resist our essence, is to fracture the harmony that sustains us. Only in honoring our nature do we step into the light of lasting growth.

Yet, outside this fragile sanctuary, forces conspire to reshape the soul. Robert Paxton paints a stark portrait of fascism, where identity is stripped of its tenderness and forged into a weapon. It speaks not to the truth of shared humanity but to a Darwinian anthem of supremacy. In this arena, transformation is no longer a personal journey but a violent march, a submission to the will of power cloaked in destiny’s name. Here, the self becomes a pawn, its wisdom silenced beneath the roar of collective struggle.

Alfred Lubrano’s voice carries the weight of resistance—intimate, raw, and imperfect. His discomfort with power, his instinct to yield until the moment of rebellion, mirrors the tension between submission and selfhood. It is the story of many who walk the line between deference and defiance, their hearts longing for respect yet bristling under the burden of imposed hierarchy. In his words, we hear the echo of a deeper truth: transformation falters when it rises only in reaction to oppression, untethered from the wisdom of self-awareness.

Together, these voices weave a tapestry of identity and power—of how we falter and rise, bend and break. They remind us that the world will forever seek to mold us, some hands gentle, others cruel. Yet our truest transformation lies not in the hands of others, nor in our defiance alone, but in the quiet courage to listen inward and honor the rhythm that has always been ours.

Analytical 

The first quote by Pema Chodron emphasizes the futility of resistance against one's own nature, highlighting the necessity of self-compassion and inner alignment for true transformation. This perspective suggests that sustainable change arises not from denying or battling who we are, but from embracing our inherent wisdom and compassion. It challenges the paradigm of self-improvement as a battle to be fought and instead frames it as a journey of acceptance and understanding.

In stark contrast, Robert Paxton's analysis of fascism portrays a worldview that weaponizes identity, positioning it as a tool for domination rather than self-realization. Fascism demands allegiance to a collective destiny, rooted in exclusion and competition, where power is justified not by universal truths but by the assertion of supremacy in a zero-sum struggle. This ideology corrupts the process of self and group understanding, replacing authentic growth with a rigid, combative identity that denies the inherent worth of others.

Alfred Lubrano's reflection bridges the gap between the internal and external struggles of identity and power. His discomfort with authority figures and the cyclical tension in his relationships reveal a deeply personal example of the dynamics explored in the other two quotes. On one hand, his working-class perspective reflects the struggle against external forces that impose definitions and expectations. On the other hand, his eventual "coming back too strong" mirrors the internal resistance Pema Chodron warns against—a reaction that may temporarily address imbalance but lacks the enduring transformation that comes from honoring one’s authentic self.

Together, these quotes tell a story of how individuals and societies grapple with power and identity. They warn against the dangers of denying our own nature, succumbing to ideologies that seek to exploit identity, and reacting to power in ways that perpetuate cycles of conflict. Instead, they invite us to seek transformation through self-awareness, compassion, and the rejection of systems—whether internal or external—that resist the truth of who we are. Only through this alignment can lasting growth and meaningful relationships flourish.

January 11 - Some quotes and some journal articles of interest

Quotes

"The world is easier to navigate if you remember that people are governed by emotions, acting more often out of jealousy, pride, shame, desire, fear, or vanity than dispassionate logic. We act and react because we feel something. To discount this and listen superficially—or not at all—is to operate at a serious disadvantage." (Kate Murphy, You're Not Listening)

Most of your training should be below aerobic threshold. This approach lets you build aerobic volume while minimizing injury risk. (David Roche, When (And Why) to Train Below Aerobic Threshold | Trail Runner Magazine)

"Social revolutions are usually horrible times of great unrest and insecurity, but they are also historical watersheds that reset and potentially revitalize a nation." (Brian Walker, David Salt, Resilience Practice)

"This requires greater prioritization of behavioural and operational research, a discipline that gets scant coverage in academic circles but which encompasses systems analysis and modelling. It also requires greater value to be placed on synthesis as a tool in discovery because of its power to describe system-level behaviour. Often it is the simple solutions applied well that make the difference rather than new technologies." (nature.com, Take the Long View - Nature)

"Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty." (Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection)

"Draw yourself up to your full height and look your audience straight in the eyes, and begin to talk as confidently as if every one of them owed you money. Imagine that they do. Imagine that they have assembled there to beg you for an extension of credit. The psychological effect on you will be beneficial." (Dale Carnegie, The Quick and Easy Way to Effective Speaking)

Systems

"One starting point for identifying where to take action is to look at the chains of causalities and feedback loops to see where potential for action lies. Another is to explicitly locate alternative attractors within the system. These are likely to be points where there are counter-narratives to the dominant narratives – which appear to have some traction even on a very small scale. Participants will also need to look for where the strong energy seems to be in the system – narratives which excite or anger people and so on. The potential for change in a system often exists in the domains where there is a visible emotional response to issues." (Danny Burns and Stuart Worsley, Navigating Complexity in International Development) 

Journal Articles

Bridging the Gap Between Labour Unions and the Management Through Leadership Development Programs?

Merging Worklife Organizational Innovation and Educational Programs- Promoting Continuous Adaptations to the Global Economy

When Successful Action Research is not Legitimized as Scientific Contribution by the Central Sponsors: How can Morten Levin’s Three Pillars of Action Research Support the Arch of Research Collaboration between Large Public Organizations and Universities?

When Co-Generative Learning Met Co-Production and Co-Creation - On How Three Different Concepts Shaped “Samskaping”

Reflections on a Cold, Dark January 10

Happy January 10. Not much to add to today’s post other than the fact that it is winter—it’s cold, dark, and unmistakably the 10th of January.

Here are three of the nine quotes that popped up in my Reedwise feed today. For whatever reason, these ones spoke to me more than the others I chose not to share here. It’s interesting how often quotes on fascism appear in my feed and how frequently I’m drawn to them, sometimes even repeating ones I’ve posted before. Perhaps it’s a reflection of how I’m feeling about the times we’re living in? 🤔

Quotes

"Fascism was an affair of the gut more than of the brain, and a study of the roots of fascism that treats only the thinkers and the writers misses the most powerful impulses of all."

– Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism

"Studies show that identifying other people’s social class really is child’s play for most of us."
– Keith Payne, The Broken Ladder

"Making my bed correctly was not going to be an opportunity for praise. It was expected of me. It was my first task of the day, and doing it right was important. It demonstrated my discipline. It showed my attention to detail, and at the end of the day it would be a reminder that I had done something well, something to be proud of, no matter how small the task."
– William H. McRaven, Make Your Bed