Why I Stopped Multitasking and What I Do Instead

Enzo was telling me something about a kid at school; something important to him, I could tell by the way he kept pulling at my sleeve and I was half-listening while scrolling through a work email on my phone.

"Dad, are you listening?"

I said "yeah, buddy" on autopilot. He went quiet. And then he just walked away.

That moment stuck with me in a way I couldn't shake. Not because I'd made some catastrophic parenting error, but because it was the third time that week it had happened. Different kid, different conversation, same result: I was physically present and mentally somewhere else entirely.

I'd spent years convinced that multitasking was a core parenting skill. You have to do multiple things at once that's just the job. But somewhere between the email and Enzo's silence, I started wondering if I'd confused busyness with effectiveness.

The Multitasking Myth I Bought Into

There's a version of productive parenting that looks impressive from the outside: answering Slack messages while helping with homework, meal planning while listening to a podcast while folding laundry. I wore that version like a badge.

The problem? I was doing four things poorly instead of one thing well.

I'd revisit the email I'd "answered" twenty minutes earlier and realise it didn't actually make sense. Cataleya would ask me a question about her homework and I'd give a response that was half for her and half leftover from whatever I'd been reading. The laundry got folded, technically, but nothing felt done.

The research on multitasking has been pretty clear for a while now: what we call multitasking is really just rapid task-switching. And every switch costs you something; attention, accuracy, time. For parents, there's an extra cost that the productivity research doesn't always measure: the other person in the room notices.

What I Do Instead: One Thing at a Time

I know. It sounds obvious to the point of being useless. But the practice of it is harder than it sounds, and the results even after a few weeks were enough to keep me going.

Here's how I actually apply it:

I batch tasks by type, not by timing. Emails and messages get handled in two windows; once before the kids wake up, once after they're in bed. Not in between. Not while someone is talking to me. This sounds simple until you're used to treating your phone like a slot machine and have to physically put it in another room.

I use a "parking lot" for thoughts that interrupt me. When I'm present with Enzo or Cataleya and a work thought tries to hijack my brain, I write it down in a small notebook or the notes app and let it go. It's not lost, it's parked. That mental move made a surprising amount of difference.

I protect a few daily "deep work" windows. I get about 90 minutes of real focus time most days usually early morning. That's when I do anything that requires actual thinking. Not during homework time. Not at dinner. Not in the car on the way to Cataleya's activities. Those spaces belong to something else.

I narrate the switch when I have to. Sometimes life doesn't cooperate and something genuinely urgent comes up. Now, instead of just drifting into my phone while Enzo talks, I say out loud: "I need to handle something real quick give me two minutes, then I'm all yours." He gets it. Kids understand "I'll be right with you" far better than they understand being talked at by someone who isn't really there.

It Feels Slower at First

Doing one thing at a time felt almost uncomfortable for the first week or two. I kept reaching for my phone while waiting for the pasta to boil. I'd sit down to write and feel the pull to check something, anything, first.

That restlessness was useful information. It told me how dependent I'd become on the feeling of doing multiple things at once, even when none of them were getting done well.

Slowing down to do one thing feels like falling behind. Except it isn't. The email that would have taken me 15 distracted minutes takes 5 when I'm actually focused. The conversation with Cataleya about her day that I used to half-track now actually ends with both of us satisfied, rather than her trailing off and me having retained nothing.

It's Not About Being a Better Person

I want to be honest about something: this isn't a post about mindfulness or being more intentional or whatever the current language is for this idea. I'm not a naturally calm person. I like checking things. I like staying on top of things.

What changed is simpler than a mindset shift. I started treating attention like a limited resource because it is, and stopped pretending I could split it across five things without a cost.

The cost, it turned out, was mostly paid by Enzo and Cataleya. Kids are perceptive. They know when you're there and when you're not, even when your body is in the room.

Where to Start

If you're not ready to overhaul your whole approach, start with one change: pick a 30-minute window each day where the phone is in another room. Not on the table face-down. Another room.

See what happens to the quality of that time. Then decide if you want more of it.

That's where I started. Everything else followed.