alt Hacker News>multitasking for a long time is not a free lunch
The multitasking I was talking about was combining a mindless repetitive task that has low cognitive demands such as walking on a treadmill, yardwork raking leaves, driving on non-descript boring roads ... with listening to a podcast about whatever topics are interesting. The mind is engaged while the hands and feet doing the work are on autopilot. In those cases, it can be a "free lunch" in the sense that the curiosity-seeking mind got fed while whatever physical task that needed to get done also got done with less procrastination and dread.
I wasn't talking about trying to edit a Excel spreadsheet while listening and concentrating on a podcast about the politics and protests of datacenter buildouts.
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It’s also under appreciated that its good to have the brain be bored and doing nothing. While you are being curious you aren’t thinking or contemplating or creating or imagining, just consuming that dopamine sink.
> In those cases, it can be a "free lunch" in the sense that the curiosity-seeking mind got fed while whatever physical task that needed to get done also got done with less procrastination and dread.
The interesting thing is, exercise is more effective and beneficial when brain is focused on what body is doing, i.e. doing mindful exercise is more beneficial than giving brain a pacifier while body is doing something else.
On the "procrastination & dread": The brain has a daily limit on hard concentration. From my personal experience (during my Ph.D.) it tops around four hours most. I also find staying put very useful and beneficial, because after stuffing too much information into it, your brain needs to sift through and filter it. Also I find myself refining my previous ideas while staying put and doing nothing maybe except writing down what I'm refining or journaling.
You can create brain fatigue, fog or plain burnout by trying to make it run flat our all day long. Let it rest, reset and restore. You'll have much more happier.