Ever happened to you? You wrap up a 30-minute (or longer) meeting, get back to your desk ready to dive back into work after the meeting that could, in some ways, be considered a break from work; but something feels off. Words on the screen look familiar, but you’re reading the same paragraph three times and nothing is sticking. Part of your brain is still replaying a particular sentence from the meeting that just happened, or the meeting in general and whether it was good or not. Another part of your thoughts is focused on some other task that could easily wait. You think you’ve moved on to the new task, but your brain hasn’t caught up yet. Like someone took your attention and strapped it into a seat on a roller-coaster.
That occurrence is called attention residue. It is the cognitive lag that happens when you switch tasks, and it costs us way more than those few minutes spent in the meeting.
Researcher Sophie Leroy identified this phenomenon back in 2009, and the science behind it is fascinating and frustrating.
Deep into a task, your brain creates what neuroscientists call a “mental set”, a task-specific information set that gets stored in your working memory.What does that look like?
Imagine it’s your first day on the job as an usher at a movie theater. Your goal is to create positive guest experience. And you do that by welcoming patrons, checking tickets, directing guests to screens or to food section or the loo, managing theater cleanliness, and ensuring safety. It takes you a few days to familiarize yourself with the different areas and work routines of the movie theater. Now imagine your boss sent you on Day 4 to another movie theater of theirs. Different location, different layout. Now you need to learn the layout afresh. And imagine on Day 7 your boss sends you to a third movie theater.
Imagine your head trying to figure new theater layouts, figure the flow of crowds, safety factors, and be ready to guide guests to where they want to go. Sense the effort it might take to keep up with the frequently changing locations, as opposed to spending some time at the first location, getting good at your job, before moving to another location?
That is similar to what our mind goes through each time we switch tasks. Switching tasks to do something else means dropping the mental set of the first task and activating a new one, and that process is not instantaneous. Studies say it takes an average of 23 minutes to fully refocus after an interruption.
In our distraction-filled world, 23 minutes feels like eternity. Worse: We interrupt ourselves every 47 seconds on digital screens, rarely staying fully present. The result? Slower work, more errors, less depth , and the need for multiple revisions.
What can you do? While avoiding task switching entirely until each task we focus on is complete is near impossible. However, we could leave breadcrumbs: Jot down where you pause, and what the next steps would be. This helps give you some quick continuity when you resume the task again. And it also signals your brain to release the old task faster.
You can also batch similar work: Handle all emails in one block, or have calls back-to-back.
Fewer gear shifts mean smoother focus.
Master attention residue, and reclaim hours of deep work. What’s your biggest focus killer?