Toxic Multitasking
- September 26, 2026
- General
By John M Oldham MD
How many things can we work on at once? Does anybody really focus on just one task at a time, after turning off the cellphone texts and nonstop news? Or, more likely, do we try to resume work on the task at hand after dealing with multiple texts and after clicking on the “Breaking News” political headline. Sound familiar? In an interesting piece in The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2026/09/19/how-multitasking-can-be-toxic-your-brain-nervous-system/?linkNumber=10&utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_content=&utm_term=) entitled “Toxic multitasking is breaking your brain,” reporter Jolie Kerr asserts that for most of us, multitasking has become the “default setting.” She quotes Dr. Sandra Chapman, chief director of the Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas, Dallas, who argues that even though multitasking may seem to be a useful skill, “your brain experiences it as a performance bottleneck.” She says it’s like trying to read two different books at the same time: “You don’t absorb twice as much information,…you simply keep losing your place in both.” I confess, as someone guilty of multitasking, that her analogy hits the mark for me! Recommendations to “detoxify” multitasking include silencing your phone and keeping it out of reach, and closing all browsers you’re not using on your task at hand. Easier said than done!
In the language of NPSP25, are there particular personality styles that might lead you down the multitasking road? No hard evidence here, but, to me, the most likely might be Self-Confident, Conscientious, and perhaps Aggressive. Those with high scores on these styles might wish to pause and take stock, in case they are indeed multitasking and perhaps tilting toward overload burnout.
