Why juggling seems sensible

I don't want to start by telling you the juggling is foolish. There are good reasons for it, and some kinds of it work.

The demands are real. Modern work arrives through several channels at once, and each message comes from a person who'd like an answer. Nobody sends you a day's work in a tidy queue. If you dealt with one thing at a time in the order you chose, some people would wait, and you'd hear about it.

Being responsive is valued. The colleague who replies in two minutes is thought helpful and on top of things. In many workplaces that's how commitment shows. Reports written well don't get noticed the same way.

Some doubling-up works well. You can put a wash on and cook while the machine runs. It's fine to listen to music while you paint a wall, or to chat to a passenger on a quiet road you know well. When one of the two activities needs no attention, because a machine is doing it or because it's so practised it runs by itself, there's little or no cost. Nothing in this book is aimed at that.

Tasks have natural waits. You send a question and can't go on until the answer comes. A file takes four minutes to export. It's sensible to pick up something else in the gap, so long as you come back.

And variety is pleasant. Two hours on a reconciliation is dull. A message from a colleague is a small relief, and answering it gives a tiny sense of completion that the reconciliation won't give you for another hour.

I think the juggling is trying to meet four needs, and this list is mine. You want to keep up with everything that's asked of you. You want to be seen as responsive and reliable. You want to feel productive. And you want some relief from tasks that are long, hard or dull.

All four are reasonable. My argument is that the habit serves them badly. You keep up less well, because everything takes longer. You're reliable about replies and unreliable about the things that matter more, like Thursday's report. The productive feeling is real, but it's a feeling about activity, and what got done is a separate matter. The relief from the hard task is paid for by making the hard task harder to return to.