Information is being created and disseminated faster than any of us can absorb it. Google estimates that humans have created more information in the past five years than in all of human history – 300 exabytes of information (300,000,000,000,000,000,000) to be precise. If all that information were written on 3×5 index cards, your personal share of it would wrap around the earth twice. The pile of cards would reach to the moon three times.

Social media, emails, texts, WhatsApp messsages and phone calls take up an increasing amount of time. Our to-do lists are so full that we can’t hope to complete every item on them. So what do we do? We multitask, juggling several things at once, trying to keep up by keeping busy.

Research shows that multi-tasking doesn’t work – simply because the brain doesn’t work that way. If you’re studying from a book and trying to listen in on a conversation at the same time, those are two separate projects, each started and maintained by distinct circuits in the brain. Pay more attention to one for a moment and you’re automatically paying less attention to the other.

Students who uni-task, immersing themselves in one thing at a time, remember their work better, get more done, and their work is usually more creative and of higher quality. Fortunately there are a few pieces of advice to help stop modern life getting the better of you.

Read the article “Want to Learn Faster? Stop Multitasking And Start Daydreaming” on theguardian.com.