Willpower is a great thing!
Thanks to her we can B. save our money for a nice vacation instead of throwing it out of the window with both hands for short-term happiness. We can convince ourselves that the majority eat vegetables, whole grains and healthy fat suppliers instead of chocolate and cheesecake three times a day. And we can be loyal with our willpower, even if this hot guy at the bar makes us a clear offer with his eyes.
In short: Our willpower helps us to control ourselves and to be (or become) the person we want to be, Too bad that we weaken our willpower with a habit that for most of us is an integral part of everyday life: multitasking!
Multitasking costs us willpower
Like the brain researcher Prof. Dr. Martin Korte explains in his book "Brain Whispering", multitasking or trying to do so causes the so-called frontal lobe in our head to tire (in short). Our "favorite habit" knocks out exactly that part of our brain that is responsible, among other things, for conscious decisions and our willpower.
So the more we juggle tasks and switch from one to-do to the next and back every few seconds, the lower our resistance to temptations and the worse decisions we make – because we simply no longer have power, different options in the Playing through your head and thinking about the consequences.
Minimize multitasking triggers
In order to avoid this and not to run through the area like unwilling figures at some point, Korte advises that we should set up our everyday lives as best we can so that there are as few distracting influences as possible during an activity. So z. B. turn off the phone and put it away instead of open on the table. Or have Outlook closed and only open it at certain intervals (e.g. once an hour) to read emails instead of interrupting what we are doing at each incoming one.
Apart from the fact that we can reduce multitasking through such habits, this way we avoid having to use willpower for unnecessary decisions such as "I am now ignoring Mom's WhatsApp and concentrate on my job" – because it is also caused by constant, superfluous use is weakened, a double win for the quality of our decisions.
Admittedly, in an era of open-plan offices, to undertake high-speed communication via umpteen channels, abundance of information and 24/7 universal availability, to ban multitasking from everyday life would be illusory. But observing your own life and critically reflecting on what we can do to be at least a little less all over the place would be a wise decision for all of us …