Yep, you’ve guessed it – monotasking is the exact opposite of what women are supposed to excel at – multitasking. The more we learn about multitasking, the more it feels like a myth designed to make us take on more than we should – and the experts agree.

“It’s a pernicious myth to think we are supposed to regularly do lots at once,” explains psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber. “We overestimate our capacity to multitask. Multitasking well is a rarity and we think it’s a given— concentrating on more than one thing at a time is not an easy and automatic ability.”

Rather than making us more productive and focused, attempting to multitask tips us into what Fox Weber calls “disconnected busyness” where our focus is split and mentally we end up exhausted and underachieving.

“If you’re looking at your phone and watching Netflix at the same time, you’re losing something in each experience,” she tells Stylist. “Monotasking can be more manageable and competent and it’s also more wholehearted and enjoyable. Sometimes, less is more – make space for fuller experiences by committing to what you’re doing for a set amount of time, even if it’s not that interesting.”

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