88. Background Tasking: A Smarter Approach to Focus
Episode 88
Multitasking might feel productive, but science shows it’s one of the fastest ways to waste time and drain your energy. In this episode, I break down exactly why multitasking doesn’t work—neurologically, cognitively, and practically—and introduce a smarter alternative: background tasking.
This subtle but powerful strategy can help students and professionals pair tasks more effectively, reduce resistance to starting, and preserve focus where it matters most.
Whether you’re someone who swears you “work better with music” or you just feel scattered trying to juggle competing demands, this episode will help you rethink how you structure your work and study sessions. You’ll learn the science behind the myth of multitasking and walk away with a tool you can apply immediately to boost productivity without burning out.
What You Learn:
Why multitasking is neurologically impossible (and what’s really happening instead)
The hidden “switch cost” of task switching and how it steals up to 40% of your productive time
The surprising research on how heavy multitaskers actually perform worse on key cognitive skills
What background tasking is, how it works, and examples of effective pairings
When to use background tasking—and when to avoid it
🔗 Resources + Episodes Mentioned:
SchoolHabits University (Parents, go here)
SchoolHabits University (Students, go here)
The College Note-Taking Power System (Brand New Program!)
Episode 36 How to Stop Procrastinating
Episode 55 How to Use Body Doubling to Boost Focus
Episode 68 The Time Management Trap No One Talks About
Episode 72 How to Finish Unfinished Projects
Episode 80 How to Do a Work Sprint
Never stop learning.
▶ ✏️Get my FREE parent training: How to Help Your Student Handle School Like a Pro — Without Study Frustration, Assignment Overwhelm, or All the Drama (If you’re the parent of a high school or college student, this training is for you.)
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them 😉
Background Tasking: A Smarter Approach to Focus
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[00:00:00] Hey there and welcome back to the Learn and Work Smarter podcast. I'm Katie Azevedo, and today we are diving into a topic that I talk about quite a bit with my students and my professional clients, and it is one that is surrounded by a lot of misunderstandings and myths.
My goal for today is not only to debunk these myths, but to share an alternative to what you may have believed is something useful. And what is that? Multitasking.
So said another way, we are talking about why multitasking doesn't work and what actually does. We're gonna talk about what multitasking really is like, what's happening neurologically when we try to do two things at once, why it messes with our productivity and our focus more than we like to think.
And then I'll teach you an alternative concept that you may not have heard before. Background tasking.
We're gonna talk all about background tasking as we get into the episode, obviously, but just know upfront in case you're like, what is that? Tell me now. [00:01:00] It is a subtle shift in how we pair tasks together, and it can make a big difference, especially if you have a DHD, if you struggle with focus for whatever reason, or if you just feel drained by work and school demands.
So grab a notebook or take me on a walk and let's get into it.
All right, so let's get this outta the way right now. Multitasking is a myth. We are not actually able to do two things at once. Let me clarify. Yes, we can certainly walk into gum at the same time or work out and listen to music at the same time, but I'm talking about two [00:02:00] cognitively, cognitively demanding tasks done at the same time, not happening.
Now when I say cognitively demanding tasks, for the most part, that's anything that involves reading, writing, listening, and thinking. Okay, I'm gonna, and it can involve speaking as well, but so like language centers essentially, I'm gonna say that again because it is important. Cognitively demanding tasks are things that involve reading, writing, listening and thinking, So basically, most of what we do for school and work. So what does this mean? It means that when we put on a movie to play in the background, when we're studying, we're neither fully watching the movie nor fully studying. The movie requires listening and studying requires thinking those two activities compete, which means you're wasting your time.
Or when we're trying to secretly do homework for another class, like behind our screen at the same time that we're sitting in a different class listening to the professor teach. We are neither learning anything [00:03:00] or processing anything that our homework is testing us on or trying to teach. And nor are we learning anything being presented in the lecture at work.
It means that when we're trying to create a presentation for the upcoming meeting we're presenting at while listening to a podcast, even if it's this one, we're neither improving the quality of the presentation nor absorbing anything from the podcast. So let me explain what's really happening here, because this is where so many students and professionals too, were like, no, I work better when there's a movie playing, or I like to study to music, or I can pay attention to a meeting at work while also checking email. I really hear this all the time.
They're like, Katie, I, I work better with music in the background. That's a super common one. And you know, particularly for people who are working professionals, like checking email while doing a thousand other things. I hear that all the time and I get it. Like the myth of multitasking has really, really fooled us.
As I said, many of my clients are absolutely convinced that they study better with YouTube playing [00:04:00] or, or whatever it is that they claim is good. But then when I convinced them to experiment without that other task happening at the same time, that's like a lot of work on my part to convince them. I'm like, just try it one time.
They're like, oh, wait, like stand corrected. Doing it the other way was just more fun. It was more enjoyable, it was less painful. Time went by faster. And Yes, sure, absolutely full. I agree to all of that. Multitasking can most definitely make challenging or boring tasks more interesting, but it negatively impacts the quality of what we're doing.
If what we're attempting to do is cognitively demanding by nature. So you wanna make folding laundry more fun? Well, okay, cool. Listen to music or a podcast. Do you wanna make your workout go by faster? Awesome. Listen to an audiobook or you know, music, you probably enjoy your laundry and your workout more with those other activities happening at the same time.
But when you're writing your [00:05:00] essay, stick to just writing your essay because is the goal to write a good essay or to have a good time while doing it. Right. If the goal were primarily to have a fun time and the quality of your writing didn't matter, okay, listen to music and like, I don't care. You shouldn't either, I guess.
But if the goal is to write well and turn in a quality product, turn the music off and write the essay, yes. Even if now that task becomes less enjoyable. Okay, so up until now I can understand how it seems like I'm just sharing my opinion with you. Like Katie says, watching Netflix is bad when you're doing some other kind of smart activity and while, I can't help but infuse my opinions into these episodes. This stuff is completely grounded in science. So just for a few minutes, just indulge me here. We are going to talk about that, the science behind why from this day forward, I want you to abandon this delusional concept of multitasking and use background tasking instead.
And yeah, I know we haven't [00:06:00] covered that yet, but that is next. But I have to beat multitasking to the ground first. And we're gonna do that by giving you some, um, explanation as to why it truly, truly. Is a waste of your time. So let's break down what's actually happening, uh, what's actually going on in the brain when we attempt to do two things at once.
So when we attempt to multitask, right, In other words. So number one, our brain literally cannot multitask. Okay? It's like neurologically impossible. It can only switch back and forth. According to research from the American Psychological Association, multitasking is actually a misnomer.
What we're really doing is task switching, which is shifting our attention really quickly back and forth between two or more activities. And each of those switches takes a toll on our brain and on the work that we're trying to do. So let me share a quote here from the A PA. I'm going to read it and then of course I'm gonna link all these studies in the show notes too.
Okay. But the [00:07:00] quote says, even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40% of someone's productive time. And again, that's from the American Psychological Association. So, even if it feels like we are doing two things at once, what's really happening is that we're just ping ponging between tasks and we're losing time.
We're losing energy. We're losing focus every single time we even glance at that second task or divert our attention for even a moment. Now, cognitive scientists call this the switch cost. This is the time it takes our brain to reorient itself every time we jump between tasks, and that's not just a few seconds, you just heard me, you know, read that quote, it's 40% of our time.
The more complex the tasks, the greater the switch cost. So trying to write an email during a lecture class, like trying to follow the lecture class, that is a totally junk idea. Now, let me give you an example with real numbers. Okay? So let's say you sit down to work on a research paper [00:08:00] for one hour, all right?
That's 60 minutes of work time. But while you're writing, once in a while you're also checking your email. You're sort of like switching tabs. You're replying to tasks. Maybe, you know, jumping on social media just for like a quick second. If switching between tasks costs you 40% of your time, that means that you're only actually focused on your paper for 60% of that hour. That is 36 minutes of real work. When you told yourself, I worked for an hour, no, you didn't. It was 36 minutes. That's it. The other 24 minutes, it's lost to switching. It's lost to unfocused inefficient and low quality work on both sides.
That's the cost. You're working harder. But we're getting less done, and then we probably feel more exhausted at the end of the day too. At the end of the, that hour, it's so frustrating to be like, I worked for an hour, and then you look at what you produced and it's either not a lot, or it's like you have the quantity there, but the quality is not there.
And then we [00:09:00] feel like what happened? Where did my time go? Why is this junk? I have no time. My job's too hard. Right? And then we spiral from there. This is why background tasking, which we're gonna talk about next. I keep like saying, hold on, we're gonna talk about it. We will can be such a game changer.
It's a way to be productive without falling into this trap. Okay, but hold on, I'm gonna get to that strategy in a minute. I'm still on the cognitive science behind why multitasking doesn't work. So the second reason is that multitasking reduces our accuracy and it makes us slower. So another review. This one from researchers at Stanford University found that people who consider themselves heavy multitaskers actually perform worse on cognitive tasks.
They're more easily distracted and they retain less information. Now, according to lead researcher, Clifford Nass. Okay, I'm gonna read this, actually, hold on. It says, it turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking. They're [00:10:00] terrible at ignoring irrelevant information.
They're terrible at keeping information in their head nicely and neatly organized, and they're terrible at switching from one task to another. Now he goes on to reveal something kind of scary too. Again, I'm quoting this, okay, and I'm gonna read it, but, um, it's kind of long, so just bear with me. The, this whole thing is a quote he says, Nass says, if you think about it, if on the one hand, multitasking is growing not only across time, but in younger and younger kids, we're observing high levels of multitasking, if that is causing them to be worse at these fundamental abilities.
I mean, think about it, ignoring irrelevancy. That seems pretty darn important. Keeping your memory in your head nicely and neatly organized, that's got to be good. And being able to go from one thing to another if you're bad at all of those life looks pretty difficult. Okay, now I'm still quoting here.
He says "we're starting to see some higher level effects of multitasking. For example, recent [00:11:00] work we've done suggests we are worse at analytic reasoning, which of course is extremely valuable for school, for life, et cetera.". I'm still quoting. "One would think that if people were bad at multitasking, they would stop. However, when we talk with the multitaskers, they seem to think that they're great at it and seem totally unfazed and totally able to do more and more and more. As people become more and more multitaskers, not just young kids, which we're seeing a great deal of, but even in the workplace, people being forced to multitask, we worry that it may be creating people who are unable to think well and clearly".
That's the end of the quote. Okay. Mind blowing. We don't want that. You don't want that. I don't want that for you. You don't want that for me, we're creating a group of people who can't think. What do he say nicely and neatly? Who can't think well and clearly. So when people say, oh, I'm great at multitasking, it turns out that is not true at all.
In fact, the better you think you are at [00:12:00] multitasking, the worse you are at it. Isn't that how life works? Right. I'm not trying to call out anyone here, but if a teeny tiny bit of you is still thinking, yeah, but like I am the exception, I am really good at multitasking. I want you to objectively question that in the face of science.
All right, and lastly, multitasking hurts working memory and it increases our stress. So beyond just slowing us down and what we're trying to do, multitasking has also been shown to increase cognitive load. I know I'm using like sciencey words here, but like you can, you can fall, you guys are smart. The cognitive load, that is the amount of stuff that our brain is holding in space in itself and our working memory and processing at one time, because like if we're trying to listen to a meeting, like a presentation or maybe a lecture in school at the same time that we're trying to write an email, Both of those tasks comes with multiple things that we're trying to hold in our head. Like [00:13:00] what did the teacher just say? Like, was I supposed to just take notes on that? Like what what am I even writing in my email? Right?
That's all the sort of mental. Math, mental, um, tasks that we're trying to hold in our head. And when cognitive load increases, our working memory gets overloaded. And when that happens, we're more likely to forget things. We're more likely to make mistakes, to get stressed out. It is this constant juggling that reduces both the efficiency and the depth of our processing.
So it's not just that we're getting less done, it's also that we're remembering less of what we're doing. And that is like the absolute opposite of what I am trying to promote on this show. So the takeaway here isn't just that multitasking is bad, it's that our brains literally aren't wired to process multiple demanding tasks at the same time.
And when we try to force it, we pay the price in time, in stress, in accuracy and in comprehension. And that's why I want to show you [00:14:00] a better alternative. One that works better with how the brain actually is built and it's called background tasking, which I've hinted at like 27 times by now, and it can help us get more done, especially if you tend to get bored or distracted or overwhelmed when you work and study.
So simply put background tasking is the better, smarter cousin of multitasking. So instead of trying to do two hard things at the same time, background tasking is about pairing one cognitively demanding task with one that is automatic or low effort. Okay? The key here is that the low effort task should require little to no mental energy.
It should mostly be automatic, meaning that we don't have to think about doing it. It's kind of second nature. So let's go through some examples. So, walking a familiar route while listening to an educational podcast, the walking requires no thinking, so you can [00:15:00] fully engage with what you're hearing, but walking on an unfamiliar route or maybe on a busy road where you have to navigate traffic and think about where you're going and stepping, that doesn't count.
It can be watching some professional development training while on a stationary bike. Your legs are just moving. It's, there's automaticity involved. You're not thinking about it, right? You're not thinking about balancing or navigating traffic signs. I'm gonna share a few more examples in a sec, but this strategy works especially well if you're neurodivergent or prone to zoning out when tasks feel boring or too hard or overwhelming because the low effort background task gives you just enough dopamine to keep it interesting. Now let's talk about when background tasking works and when it doesn't. It works when the background task is repetitive, physical or automatic, like folding laundry or walking. It does not work when both tasks require focus or the same cognitive resources like listening and reading at the same time. Listening, reading, [00:16:00] writing, thinking.
Those require your language centers. So if you pair a a reading tasks with a listening task, okay, that are different, you're competing for the language centers in your brain and that doesn't work and it also doesn't work when the easy task, I'm using air quotes here if you're not watching on YouTube, but the easy task turns out to be too mentally demanding. Like cooking a new recipe or navigating a new route, like you got lost and you didn't intend for it to be more challenging, but these secondary tasks became more challenging when you were in the middle of it. So let me give you some more ideas of some decent pairings. Not that I'm saying you should go out and use these exact pairs, but just to, I don't know, inspire you to think of your own pairings based on the own tasks that you have to do.
So reading or studying flashcards while walking slowly on a treadmill. Maybe watching a lecture video while peddling lightly on a stationary bike. Listening to a podcast while you are doing dishes or wiping down surfaces. [00:17:00] Reviewing a concept out loud, or maybe brainstorming ideas to something while in the shower.
Yeah, that's. That's a thing. I do it. So it has to be a thing. And I tell you, I do this all the time. I, let me give you an example. Actually. I put out a blog post every single week on schoolhabits.com, and I almost always voice type these posts when I'm walking on the treadmill or using my Peloton. I put my iPad up on the machine and I have Google Docs open, the Google Docs app open on my phone, and I speak my blog post into my doc on my phone and I see it appear on the Google Doc app screen, like on my iPad or Google Doc app on my iPad screen. Now, of course, I have to go in later and clean it up and edit it and fix all the weird things that my mic thought it heard, right?
But I get the bulk of the work done while moving my body. I'm not sprinting, I'm not doing [00:18:00] a Peloton workout with music and instructions. I'm just moving my legs and I seriously do this all of the time because sitting down at my computer and just typing my blog post, I do not have a DHD and I am not neurodivergent, but the whole, and I, I have excellent focus. Like I have really, really intentionally built up my focus and concentration skills. But when I'm working on a task like that, I don't like to sit, I'm a wiggly person, and so sitting down and, and writing something for that long with my hands, even though I'm a super fast typer, I, I can only do it for so long.
So that is something that I have found works for me, and I'm always saying that on this show too, like experiment, find what works for you. If it doesn't work, find something else. Right? Now, one of the hidden benefits of background tasking is that it reduces resistance to starting the hard task. So if your brain associates a boring or hard [00:19:00] activity with a bit of movement or novelty, it can make you more likely to start.
So for example. If I'm like, oh, I have to, you know, write my blog post for Monday and it's gonna take me two hours to write and I'm gonna sit in my chair for two hours, I'm gonna probably find another thing to do and put that off longer than I want to. But if I'm like, oh, I get to, you know, walk for two hours just to get a slow pace or even for half of it, like, I'm gonna show up and get that blog post done.
And this is especially helpful if you struggle with task initiation, which is one of the biggest challenges that I see in both my students and adult clients. Okay, so how do we implement background tasking? How do we make this actually work? There are a few steps here. Number one, you always start with the hard task.
That is critical. What do you actually need to focus on? Is it studying? Is it reviewing something? Is it writing something? Is it preparing for a presentation? We always figure out the hard task first [00:20:00] because this is essentially the most important thing that we need to get done. number two. Next we pick the compatible low effort task.
All right, after we've picked the hard primary task, so of course we're picking something repetitive, maybe physical, non-distracting. We could do laundry, walking, doodling, tidying around is even a shower. I already mentioned that, but it works. This is secondary to the larger task. It should compliment a hard task, not compete with it.
And that's why we pick the hard task first, so that we know what context we're going to be in. Like the, the environment, right? So you can pick an appropriate background task, like if your main task is writing an essay, the background task probably can't be taking a shower. You know what I mean? Like the contexts there are not compatible.
Number three, test the pairing. This is also so important because we don't always get the [00:21:00] pairing right the first time. I don't always get the pairing right the first time, so you have to notice if your comprehension drops or you feel scattered or stressed or distracted or like your attention is split, that might be a bad pairing and that's fine.
We learn from it. If this happens? Easy, You have two choices. You can swap out the background task with a different one or just go back to single tasking doing the one thing, because it just might be that we thought our hard task could be paired with the background task, but maybe, maybe it's such a cognitively demanding task that it's better done with full concentration or single tasking.
All right, because that happens too. And then a final tip. If you are going to try this strategy for studying, which is fine, you can do not use it for deep learning of new concepts. Use it only for review and then for like running through material that you've seen [00:22:00] before. Background tasking can be good for reinforcing material, but definitely not for learning complex information for the first time.
I talk a lot about active recall. I have episodes, I forget the number off the top of my head. Um, for, you know, active Recall is the only way to study and active recall is very challenging. It requires 100% of our focus and our concentration, and it's so uncomfortable. Sometimes it's, or it's so challenging sometimes it can be uncomfortable. If you're using active recall to learn new information, there is no background tasking happening. All right. Before we get to our recap, I want to send you in a direction of five other episodes of the Learn Work Smarter podcast that offer strategies to extend the conversation that we're having here today.
Remember, the links to all of these will be in the show notes at Learnand worksmarter.com/podcast/88, and in the description box if you are watching this on YouTube. But that is, I have them [00:23:00] written down. Because I don't memorize. Um, episode 80, how to do a Work Sprint, episode 72, how to Finish Unfinished Projects, episode 68, which is a time management trap and no one talks about, episode 55, how to use body doubling to boost focus.
That is a really, really good strategy to try. Whether or not you have a DHD body doubling can drastically improve your focus and your concentration. Um, so maybe you don't even need background tasking at all. And then episode 36, how to stop procrastinating, uh, that is relevant here. These episodes give you concrete strategies to boost focus and productivity, obviously instead of this multitasking nonsense.
Okay, I like a good recap and I want to do that by starting with some key terms.
Let's review some of those terms that we covered here today. There is single tasking that is doing one task at a time, and this is [00:24:00] best for deep work, like studying and really hard things usually that require our language centers of our brain. Then there is multitasking, which is doing two hard things at once.
This doesn't work. Stop doing it and background tasking. And that is when we pair one hard task and one automatic or low energy or low effort task. That is the only combination of tasks that work. The bottom line here is that we do not need to be constantly productive.
I wanna make it clear that I don't promote always listening to a podcast while going on a walk, or you know, always watching a lecture video while on the elliptical. That's exhausting to do all of the time. But when we do need to get things done, especially when our energy is low or our brain just feels meh, background tasking can be a gentle, effective tool to help us move forward on the hard stuff that we've been avoiding.
And it's one more strategy to add tier [00:25:00] toolkit, which is what we are all about over here. So that's it for today. If you found this helpful, I would love it if you shared it with a student, a colleague, or anyone you know who struggles with focus and productivity. And if you're looking for more strategies like this, especially if you have a DHD or just feel like you've never learned how to do school or do work, check out School Habits University.
It's packed with the systems that I teach to students and professionals who want to learn how to learn and work smarter. You can find everything about that program at schoolhabitsuniversity.com. Thanks for listening. Keep showing up. Keep asking the hard questions, keep doing the work, and never stop learning.
