Multitasking Isn’t Real, Except When It Is

B y now you probably know that multitasking is mostly a myth: lunch never tastes as good when you eat it at a desk, and friends never pay as much attention to the conversation when they call you while driving. Even so, there are still a few rewarding ways to do two things at once in this world, especially if one of them is something you don’t think you have time for.

If you don’t have time to read for fun, read on the bus or in any car you’re not driving. If you can’t read while in transit, read while you’re winding down for bedtime, when scientists say you shouldn’t look at your phone anyway. If you’re doing homework right up until bedtime, stop looking at your phone while you do it, watch it take half as much time, and go read.

If you don’t have time to exercise, bike or walk to school or work. If you can’t bike or walk safely, get exercise by cleaning your house real hard. If someone else cleans your house, consider cleaning it yourself to get some exercise and save your family some money. (Bonus points.)

If you don’t get enough sleep, nap on the way to or from school. If your fellow travelers interrupt your sleep, eat your after-school snack on your way home from school so that you don’t need as much time to chill before starting your homework, so that you can get to bed earlier.

And if you just have way too much schoolwork, improve your study skills by paying attention while sitting in class, making connections to your interests while reading, or quizzing yourself while reviewing the study guide you made.

You do make your own study guides, right? Every weekend? You don’t settle for the ones your instructor hands out to the whole class, do you?