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"the goal is not constant focus, but a short period of distraction-free time every day. "Twenty minutes a day of deep focus could be transformative," Rock says." The steps: 1: Do creative work first. 2: Allocate your time deliberately. 3: Train your mind like a muscle.

"'Effective multitasking' is sort of an oxymoron. "The human brain doesn't really multitask," says Art Markman, cognitive psychologist and author of Smart Thinking (Perigee, 2012). "What the human brain does is what I call time-sharing.""

""Successful" multitasking has been shown to activate the reward circuit in the brain by increasing dopamine levels-the brain chemical responsible for feelings of happiness.... This is comparable to the rush you might feel while playing the slot machines in a casino.... It's important to be aware of how multitasking can stimulate us into mindlessness, giving the illusion of productivity while stealing our focus and harming performance."

Remember Pavlov's doggie? This is an overview of reinforcement (positive and negative) as well as schedules of reinforcement. Pay special attention to intermittent reinforcement: it might be even more powerful than reliable reinforcement schedules, since uncertainty could lead to higher success of the reinforcer.

Multitasking feels good because of your brain chemicals, not because you're good at it. Excerpt: "Research has shown that when you multitask 'successfully', you activate the reward mechanism in your brain which releases dopamine, the happy hormone. This dopamine rush makes you feel so good that you believe you're being effective and further encourages your multitasking habit."

It's pretty amazing stuff, really. According to one hypothesis, dopamine is a reward for unexpected stimuli: "...rewards that are expected do not produce any activation of dopamine cells, but rewards that are greater than expected produce a short-lasting increase in dopamine." And it has profound effects on cognition: "It is now known that both dopamine and norepinephrine have essential actions on prefrontal cortical function, and help coordinate cognitive state with arousal state.[28] Dopamine has an "inverted U" influence on prefrontal function through its actions on D1 receptors, where either too little or too much impairs working memory function.[29]"

APA's 2006 summary of numerous research papers finds (1) humans are not able to multitask and (2) multitasking reduces efficiency. Their conclusion: avoid multitasking on complex tasks. Excerpt "Although switch costs may be relatively small, sometimes just a few tenths of a second per switch, they can add up to large amounts when people switch repeatedly back and forth between tasks. Thus, multitasking may seem efficient on the surface but may actually take more time in the end and involve more error. Meyer has said that even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone's productive time."