601. Multitasking Doesn’t Work. So Why Do We Keep Trying?

Freakonomics Radio

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4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 5 September 2024

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Only a tiny number of “supertaskers” are capable of doing two things at once. The rest of us are just making ourselves miserable, and less productive. How can we put the — hang on a second, I've just got to get this. Come see Stephen Dubner live! “A Questionable Evening: A strategic interrogation from two people who ask questions for a living,” featuring Stephen Dubner and PJ Vogt from Search Engine. Thursday, Sept. 26th, at the Bell House in Brooklyn, NY. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-questionable-evening-evening-with-stephen-dubner-and-pj-vogt-tickets-1002544747327

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there.
0:03.3	Stephen Dubner with an announcement.
0:05.1	On Thursday evening, September 26th, I will be doing a live show in New York City
0:09.8	with my friend PJ Vote from the podcast search engine. The event is called a
0:14.0	questionable evening, a strategic interrogation from two people who ask questions
0:18.6	for a living. So come see us Thursday, September 26th at the Bell House in Brooklyn.
0:25.0	Doors open 630 show at 7. You have to be 21 to attend.
0:29.0	Tickets available at the Bell Houseny.com or ny.com or event bright
0:34.4	dot com. You can also find the link in our show notes.
0:37.3	Hope to see you there. And now today's episode.
0:40.6	I have a question. What are you doing right now? That's easy. You are
0:49.7	listening to this podcast. At least you're partially listening.
0:54.4	If you're like most people, you're probably doing something else at the same time,
0:58.1	walking your dog maybe, doing some housework or desk work or maybe coding could be running a table saw.
1:06.1	We all know what this is called.
1:08.3	Multitasking, a name taken from the early computing era and now applied to humans. It is almost a philosophy.
1:17.2	This is who we are and this is what we do. But there are some other things to be said about multitasking, things that are not widely known.
1:26.4	It's known within academic circles, but I guess we have failed to bring it out into the general public.
1:33.0	And so on today's episode of Freakonomics Radio,
1:36.0	which you were kind of listening to,
1:38.0	we will tell you what the academics have failed to tell you.
1:41.0	There is some surprising science on multitasking.
	...

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