# Musk: What Really Kills Your Thinking Is Frequent Task Switching

In a podcast episode, the female host asked Musk about his daily life, and he candidly admitted that he receives massive amounts of communication messages every day.

Given his work intensity, the word "massive" even seems understated.

This naturally raises curiosity: facing such a torrent of information erosion, how does Musk accomplish enormous amounts of work while maintaining efficiency several times greater than ordinary people?

His answer was concise and powerful:

"I need to prioritize information, dividing my day into several time blocks to reduce frequent task switching between them. Because what truly kills thinking is never fear or stress—it's task switching itself. When your inbox is flooded with messages, it's hard for attention not to be constantly pulled; imagine switching work tasks every 30 seconds, and the drain on attention becomes staggeringly large."

I have carefully studied Musk's biography and related business research, summarizing his high-efficiency work methodology—research comparing project timelines between his companies and competitors found that his annual workload is nearly 8 times that of his peers:

**First, we must understand: the human brain is a single-core processor.**

Unlike electronic devices, the human brain cannot truly process multiple tasks in parallel. So-called "multitasking" is essentially high-frequency switching between different tasks, not running multiple programs simultaneously like a phone does.

Here's an example: task switching has a cost:

When jumping from one task to another, the brain experiences brief stalling, averaging 0.1-0.2 seconds. Though seemingly brief, this continuously consumes time and energy, and weakens memory effects. This is also why checking your phone while driving is extremely dangerous—when switching back from your phone to driving, the "brain blank" can last up to 0.7 seconds.

**Second, Musk's core secret is ordered focus.**

His mention of "dividing the day into several time blocks" is specifically the practice of "ordered focus":

Plan your tasks before starting the day each morning, allocate the most important matters to fixed time blocks according to priority, and clearly define start and end times—it's like locking tasks into separate boxes and opening only one at a time, so focus can deliver high-efficiency output.

In *The Musk Biography*, it mentions that he and the top talents on his team all share this characteristic:

Musk is never alone, but rather a highly focused, highly efficient team. Once they commit to something, they completely block out other distractions, rather than working on one thing while thinking about another.

In contrast, most people fall into meaningless frequent task switching—handling their current work while still worrying about incomplete tasks.

**Finally**, I once heard a partner from a leading investment firm share that when he entered the industry, he was overwhelmed with busyness and sought advice from the company founder. His senior told him there were only two essential things: Focus and Priority.

It seems the underlying logic of all efficient people is universal.