In today’s always-on world, multi-tasking is the norm. When you’re doing a lot of things at the same time, it can feel like you’re accomplishing more. It’s even common to feel guilty and unproductive when you are only doing one thing at a time.

However, neuroscience tells us that it is actually impossible to pay attention to two things at once. When we think we are doing two things simultaneously (like watching TV and answering email), we are actually “task-switching”—switching back and forth rapidly between two or more tasks.