Welcome to the 32-hour day.
Tallying each minute we multitask while working, commuting, relaxing, cooking, cleaning, exercising and staring at our various screens, our days now balloon out eight hours past the 24-hour cycle, according to a new analysis of tech and media use from Activate Consulting.
Compiling time use data for its “attention clock,” the consulting firm found multitasking works as a “time multiplier.” This includes long stretches of tech-on-tech multitasking: people pairing social media with a podcast, or texting while gaming or watching a film.
The juggle extends to the office, where employees are now interrupted every two minutes during core work hours – or 275 times in a day – by e-mails, chats and meetings, according to Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index.
Those who study attention say the push to multitask is badly misguided: The brain isn’t actually doing numerous things at once, it’s just frantically moving between jobs. The practice can leave people stressed, their work rushed and substandard.
The Globe spoke with Israa Nasir, New York therapist and author of Toxic Productivity, about the cultural pressure to multitask and a newer shift toward “mono-tasking” instead.
Therapist Israa Nasir: “Multitasking gets glorified because the person who visibly is doing the most ... is seen as more productive.”Tarishi Gupta/Supplied
Technically, a 32-hour-day is impossible. What do you make of this drive to multitask at all times?
We may be operating at 32 hours in terms of how much work the brain is doing. But the cognitive load is very high because our brain is rapidly switching between tasks.
We might get more done, but what is the quality of what we’re getting done? If you care about a good result, you have to prioritize and focus on what you’re doing.
With this intensification of multitasking, we’re only operating at a shallow level of thinking. We can’t tap into deep work that requires focus. This makes us irritable. Our cognitive resources are depleted and we don’t have a lot of patience.
How did multitasking get conflated with a strong work ethic, even when we know juggling often yields poor results?
In the workplace, we tend to think of quantity over quality. Multitasking gets glorified because the person who visibly is doing the most, who is in all the meetings and raising their hand is seen as more productive.
People also assume multitasking points to better time management. Externally, you get a lot of validation for it. Internally, you feel a sense of competence and mastery over yourself: “I got so much done today!”
But if you talk to people who are getting a lot done, it’s like a duck on water. On the surface they look super chill. Below the surface, their legs are frantic.
As a therapist, I’ve worked with people who’ve been internally run down and overwhelmed, their nervous systems dysregulated. But externally, they were getting accolades: “Wow, you’re so organized.” There’s a major disconnect between those two.
Toxic Productivity by Israa NasirSupplied
What effect can constant and intense multitasking have on health?
We see cardiovascular stress. There is poor sleep – “tired but wired.” From a mental health perspective, there can be chronic stress and burnout.
The constant overwhelm can lead to a state of dysthymia, which some call a high-functioning depression. You’re doing things because they need to be done but you’re on autopilot. You’re going through the motions but not feeling the spark of being alive. You’re not pausing enough to ask whether any of it leaves you happier or more connected in your relationships.
That is the state a lot of people are living in. Corey Keyes called it “languishing” in his 2024 book. It’s a state of dissatisfaction, a disconnect between your values and the things you’re multitasking. You’re not burned out because you’re doing too much; you’re burned out because you’re doing too few of the things you enjoy.
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What messaging do we get throughout our lives about multitasking?
A generation of women was raised to believe that their brains can handle multitasking and that men’s brains can’t. Actually, women are just carrying heavier mental loads.
If you come from a family culture where you’re expected to create a lot of output, multitasking becomes a coping skill. This happens a lot with immigrant children. If they’re translating for their parents but also have to do homework and care for younger siblings, it doesn’t leave them any other option. Multitasking becomes embedded in your way of being.
Nobody really likes to juggle many things at once. So why does “mono-tasking” – focusing on one job at a time – get such short shrift?
There’s a lot of morality around this and it has to do with the Protestant work ethic. That is the foundational mental framework. Anybody who went to school here in North America – that is the paint on the wall.
There’s a lot of judgment, morality, comparison and money – the bottom line – involved in this sense that doing one thing is not enough any more.
Are you seeing any embrace of mono-tasking?
Right now, mono-tasking is mostly accessible to the upper echelon. The CEO can block off 90 minutes of heads-down time for deep work. But that’s not acceptable for the rest of the company. Layoffs are happening and it’s hard to find a job. And so people are very motivated by the optics of “I’m integral” and “I’m busy.”
Sometimes, smaller startups are able to do this. Where I work – Anise Health, a digital mental health service – we can block off “no meeting time.” You put a brain emoji in the calendar and nobody will disturb you.
Outside work, people are trying to do no e-mails when they wake up, or take naps in the afternoon, or socially under-commit themselves. They will keep one block for themselves during the weekend. Or take one after-school activity off their children’s plates, going deep with one activity instead of shallow with four.
Are you trying to single-task more yourself? How does it change your work and the course of your day?
I now put my phone far away from me when I watch a movie. I don’t do the big-screen-little-screen thing any more. I have an alarm clock bedside, so when I reach for the snooze button, I’m not picking up my phone. And I will take 10 minutes to eat my breakfast and drink my coffee without my phone.
I find I can tap into daydreaming again. That pours into my writing; I come up with connections. It makes me feel calm, like I’m in control of my day – my day is not in control of me.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.