Vlad's Roam Garden

context-switching is expensive

context-switch productivity context-switch seedling multitasking attention Execution make-public

Human consciousness is single-threaded. We can't focus on multiple things at the same time.

What people do is the classic multitasking simulation - rapidly switching between the tasks they are trying to accomplish. And doing this is expensive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr8W8ejX6To

demonstrates it on the example of a simple task, but for more complex tasks with larger contexts - the cost can be even more dramatic.

It can take us several minutes to re-focus on the task after being interrupted.

Ways to avoid context-switching:

pomodoro technique is one way to enforce the responsiveness limit on yourself

Eliminate distractions in the environment

Change your environment to encourage behaviors you want

footnote

Human consciousness is single-threaded. We can't focus on multiple things at the same time.

I mention consciousness here specifically, because. Brain is multi-threaded - performing the body maintenance/etc in background.

reference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr8W8ejX6To

people have a very limited short-term memory

Humans clearly have context-switching costs too. We feel them when we move papers on and off our desk, close and open documents on our computer, walk into a room without remembering what had sent us there, or simply say out loud, “Now, where was I?” or “What was I saying?” Psychologists have shown that for us, the the scale of minutes rather than microseconds. To put that figure in perspective, anyone you interrupt more than a few times an hour is in danger of doing no work at all.

Algorithms to Live By: 146

The moral is that you should try to stay on a single task as long as possible without decreasing your responsiveness below the minimum acceptable limit. Decide how responsive you need to be — and then, if you want to get things done, be no more responsive than that.

Algorithms to Live By: 154

Referenced in

batch tasks to avoid unnecessary context switching

context-switching is expensive

batch tasks to avoid unnecessary context switching

context-switching is expensive if you need to do several tasks of a similar type, for example - paying bills, you can achieve it more efficiently if you are to collect them and do them all at one time. Instead of doing them as they arise.

context-switching is expensive