At home

The habit doesn't stay at work. Saturday's damp washing and half-hung shelf come from the same place, and the costs at home can be higher, because some of the things being half attended to are people.

Household jobs follow chapter 11's arithmetic. Four jobs done in rotation leave the house in a state all day. There are tools out, a basket in the hall, and the ingredients for lunch spread across the worktop. Done one at a time, each job gets finished and cleared away before the next begins, so at any moment there's only one mess. The total effort is smaller too. You get the drill out once and put it away once.

Home is also where the good kind of doubling-up belongs, and it's worth using on purpose. The washing machine, the oven and the dishwasher are doing tasks that need none of your attention. Start those first, then do your one thing while they run. That's how a machine is meant to be used, and it isn't juggling.

Cooking is a special case. A meal with three components is one task with several parts, and managing the parts is the skill of it. The trouble comes when you add a different task, such as answering messages or helping with homework at the hob. That's usually when the rice burns.

With children, it's harder, and I don't want to pretend otherwise. Small children interrupt constantly and legitimately, and a parent at home with them is in the same position as the receptionist in chapter 14. The same suggestions apply. When you're with them, be with them, and don't attempt tasks that need sustained thought. Save those for nap time, the evening, or an hour when someone else has the children. A lot of the frustration parents feel at being interrupted comes from trying to do attention-heavy tasks at a time when interruption is certain.

Then there are conversations. If your partner is telling you about their day and you're glancing at your phone, you're juggling, and chapter 3 applies to you as much as to the driver. You're not listening and reading. You're alternating between them, and you're missing parts of both. The other person can tell.

So for a conversation that matters, the phone goes in another room. The same goes for a child who wants to show you something, or a friend across a table. It takes about ten minutes. You can almost always spare ten minutes for someone in front of you, and it matters more to them than the message you'd have read.

Rest is the last thing at home that needs this treatment. If you watch a film while scrolling, you haven't really watched the film and you haven't rested. If the film isn't holding you, turn it off and do something else. If it is, put the phone out of reach. You can only rest by doing one restful thing at a time.