The Molecule of More

Almost any experience is improved by paying full attention to it.
—Kelly McGonigal, Lecturer in Management, 
Stanford School of Business
In spite of what technology addicts may believe, multitasking, or paying 
attention to more than one thing at a time, is impossible. When you 
attempt to do more than one thing, such as talking on the telephone 
while reading an email, you shift your attention between the tasks, and 
end up compromising on both. Sometimes you pause while reading the 
email to listen to the person on the phone; other times you stop listening 

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THE MOLECULE OF MORE
as you focus on the email. The person you’re talking to can tell. You’re 
obviously not giving him your full attention, and you miss important 
details. Instead of increasing your efficiency, “multitasking” decreases it.
Aza Raskin, an expert on user experience and the lead designer for 
the Firefox 4 web browser, gives an example. Spell aloud, letter by letter, 
“Jewelry is shiny” while at the same time printing your name. How long 
does it take? Now spell aloud, letter by letter, “Jewelry is shiny” and 
then, after you are done with that, write your name. How long did that 
take? Probably about half as much time as “multitasking” did.
You also make more mistakes when you try to multitask. Interrup-
tions of only a few seconds, the amount of time it takes to switch to 
your email program and back, can double the number of errors you 
make on a task that requires concentration. It’s not just the distraction 
that causes the mistakes; switching back and forth consumes mental 
energy, and fatigue makes it harder to concentrate. Still, people do it, 
especially people who work with computers.
A study from the University of California, Irvine, in collaboration 
with Microsoft and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tracked 
the work habits of people who spent most of their day online. The aver-
age amount of time they spent on one task before switching to another 
was only 47 seconds. Over the course of the day they switched between 
tasks more than four hundred times. Those who spent less time before 
jumping to something else experienced higher levels of stress and got 
less work done—if for no other reason than that they repeated the 
“switch tasks” maneuver four hundred times instead of only once after 
each task was completed. In addition to decreasing productivity, high 
levels of stress also cause fatigue and burnout.
THE HIGH COST OF LIVING IN THE FUTURE
Living our lives in the abstract, unreal, dopaminergic world of future 
possibilities comes at a cost, and that cost is happiness. Researchers 
from Harvard University discovered this by developing a smartphone 
app that prompted volunteers to provide real-time reports of their 

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HARMONY
thoughts, feelings, and actions as they went about their daily activi-
ties. The goal of the study was to learn more about the relationship 
between a wandering mind and happiness. Over five thousand people 
from eighty-three countries volunteered to be in the study.
The app contacted the participants at random times to request 
data. It asked the volunteers, “How are you feeling right now?” “What 
are you doing right now?” and “Are you thinking about something 
other than what you’re currently doing?” People answered yes to the 
last question about half the time, no matter what they were doing. All 
activities produced the same amount of mind wandering except sex, 
which was very good at keeping people’s attention. In every other situ-
ation, though, thinking about other things happened so frequently that 
the researchers concluded that a wandering mind, what scientists call