It is hard to switch between tasks seamlessly without carrying over some residual attention to the previous tasks.

Sophie Leroy in Why is it so hard to do my work?

When you switch from some Task A to another Task B, your attention doesn’t immediately follow—a residue of your attention remains stuck thinking about the original task. This residue gets especially thick if your work on Task A was unbounded and of low intensity before you switched, but even if you finish Task A before moving on, your attention remains divided for a while.

In a multitasking work environment, we often find ourselves juggling multiple tasks and projects. And this context-switching between tasks/projects is becoming super-hard.

I feel interstitial journaling can help with this attention residue problem. Writing things down usually gets that thing out from our short term memory. ¹

This study on attention residue ² has been referenced in many books such as:

• Hyperfocus
• The Psychology of Procrastination

Footnotes

1. I remember reading that writing things down clears it off the memory. Find out which book. ↩

2. (source::Why is it so hard to do my work?)research-paper ↩