Attention residue and the price of constant switching
Reduce unnecessary transitions between unfinished tasks. Do not turn a laboratory finding into a universal percentage loss of office productivity.
The performance question
Moving from an unresolved client issue to a strategy paper can leave attention divided between them. Examine whether your work sequence repeatedly creates unfinished handovers. The performance question is whether avoidable interruptions prevent important work from receiving adequate attention.
What the evidence supports
Sophie Leroy’s two experiments found that attention can remain on a previous task and affect performance on the next. The studies examined controlled transitions and task completion conditions. They do not establish a fixed switching cost for every executive role.1
A practical approach
Trial grouping related work into blocks. Before a necessary switch, record the next step, owner and return point for the unfinished task so nothing relies solely on memory. Agree a route for genuinely urgent interruptions. Treat this closure note as a practical experiment, not a technique proven by the cited study.
How to review progress
Review completion quality, interruptions and work left unresolved during the trial. Ask whether grouping tasks delayed service or created another queue. Retain changes that help the actual work and avoid calculating money lost from an unsupported switching percentage.
Sources and references
- Attention residue when switching between work tasks Opens in a new tab
Sophie Leroy, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2009
Original research: abstract and two experimental studies
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