“Attention multitaskers: your brain may be in trouble.” So begins a Standford U. study on multitasking. Anyone attempting to multitask — type an e-mail and talk to a collegue, say — will soon have to fight their fingers typing along with the conversation, or your mouth uttering bits out of your e-mail.

It's pretty well known, of course. That's why in The Netherlands, as indeed in most EU countries, you're not allowed to handle a mobile phone while driving. The mental power needed to work your phone's keyboard is deemed to be detrimental to your driving skills. Or, more emphatically, you're a stupid idiot if you think you can safely pilot a ton of steel travelling at 55mph or 100km/h while handling a telephone. Go on, don't believe me, then. [Beware! Video contains shocking footage of a car crash. You have been warned!]

Division of labour

Strangely enough, hands-free driving is still allowed. Some people believe that, since you can keep driving while talking on the phone (or indeed the person sitting next to you) means that multitasking is possible. But I suggest that you're only doing one of those tasks consciously. When the traffic's light and you're on a known route, your subconscious is driving. Your conscious mind then is free to engage in a conversation, or just dream away. Surely commuters among you have had times that you arrived at the office or back home and can't for the life of you remember anything that happened along the way?

The subconscious gives up

But if it's an unknown route, or you're diverted from your regular route, your subconscious mind goes ‘Ding! I can't handle this!’ and hands control over to your conscious mind. Then try to drive and hold a conversation going. One of them is going to suffer.

Office multitasking

Ditto at the office, of course. Try to multitask two things that both require your conscious attention and quality and speed of either or both will suffer. Subconsciously, you can multitask. With focus and attention? Forget it.

Solution

The solution? Make sure that anything that requires your full attention to do well does indeed get your full attention.

Remove all internal distractions. Anything that bubbles up from the subconscious into your conscious mind while you're trying to concentrate will keep bubbling up unless you take it out of your mind and into some external trustworthy system. A notebook will do fine for that purpose. If some unrelated thought comes up, fine: just write it down so you can attend to it later.

Remove all external distractions. Switch off your phone (hey, it's only for an hour or so). Close the door to your office; or if you're in cubicle-country, put on headphones and some noise-masking music. Close down all applications on your computer, especially those that tend to pop up messages and notifications all the time. Run just those apps that you need to complete your task.

It's social behaviour

You may think that closing doors, switching off the phone and putting on headphones isn't very social behaviour. But on the contrary: now that you switch off the world during tasks that require your full attention, you can then use your full attention to listen to people when you resurface, and goodness that's a difference.

It's more efficient. It's more effective. It's more pleasant. What more could you want?