The hardest part of the second task is leaving the first one.
You finished the email at 2:10. The next thing is the report, and you know it, and you even want to. But between the email and the report there is a gap with no floor in it, and you fall into your phone, and when you climb out it is 2:50 and the report has to be started from cold. People with ADHD call these transitions, and the word is right. The cost is not in either task. It is in the space between them.
Every switch has a price, paid right after the switch
Switching tasks costs time and errors, even when you saw the switch coming.
A 2003 review gathered the research on it: right after people switch from one task to another, they are slower and make more mistakes, and the cost remains even when they had time to prepare (Monsell, 2003). The plain picture is this. Each task has settings: what you are looking for, what counts as done, which hand does what. Leaving a task means unloading its settings, starting the next means loading new ones, and for a while both sets are in the room.
Nobody is exempt. It is a review of the general population, not an ADHD finding. But a day with many switches is a day with many reloads, and you feel it at five as a tiredness with nothing to show for it.
An interruption is a switch you did not choose
Interrupted work gets finished faster, and the speed is paid for in stress.
In a 2008 lab study, people who were interrupted while working finished the work faster than people who were not, and reported more stress while doing it (Mark, Gudith and Klocke, 2008). They sped up to make up the time, and the body paid. One study, one lab, so we carry the shape and not the number. The shape matters, because it says the cost of a switch may not show on the clock at all. It shows in your shoulders at five.
A notification is a switch. A badge saying twelve unread is a switch. A to-do list with twelve rows in view is twelve open invitations to switch, each one whispering, and most days you accept a few without noticing you did.
Why an ADHD brain pays more at every switch
Two things make the same switch dearer for an ADHD brain.
First, coming back. With ADHD, it is hard to keep a list in your head: a 2013 meta-analysis of 38 studies found adults with ADHD score lower on working memory, the short store holding where you were and what came next (Alderson and colleagues, 2013). When you return to the report after the phone, you do not return to your own desk. You return to a stranger's: which file, which paragraph, what the next sentence was. That reload is a working memory job, and it is the job this brain finds hardest. So the switch away costs the usual price, and the switch back costs it twice.
Second, how often. In the psychiatrist William Dodson's model, an ADHD brain starts on interest, novelty, challenge or urgency, and not on importance. The phone is new every time you pick it up. The report is from Tuesday, and an email from last Tuesday is not new. So the switch away is cheap and frequent, the switch back is dear and rare, and the day fills with the first kind. You were never lazy. You paid a tax nobody showed you the bill for.
Fewer switches, not faster ones
You cannot make a switch cheap, so the answer is to make fewer of them.
One task per sitting. Chosen before you sit down, and the rest out of sight. Not the most important one, because importance does not start this brain. One at random is fine. One is the number.
Cut the switches you did not choose. Every notification is a switch someone else made for you. Turn off all of them except the ones tied to a time you set yourself, and let those be the only voice from outside.
Make the switch back cheap. When you leave a task, write its next step on a card before you go. "Paragraph three, add the number." The return is then one line to read, not a search of your own desk.
Notice drift once, then return. You will still fall into the gap some afternoons. The cost of the fall is set; the cost of the scolding is optional. Notice once, go back, and count nothing. Drift during focus has its own page.
How Kaapi does it
A focus session is one task, and everything else goes quiet.
Start focus takes the window. One task, one clock counting up, and the list is gone from view until you come back for it. If choosing the one task is itself the wall, there is a Shuffle button beside the list: "Pick one for me". The page blurs, one task sits alone, and Timi says "I picked. You start." One button, Start focus. The pick is random over everything open, never the same task twice running, and a task with steps is offered by its first open step, so the switch into it is as small as we could make it. The freeze of a full list is its own page.
During the session Timi, the pebble at the bottom right, stops talking about the rest of your list. The only voice is the check-in about the task you are on, every 5 minutes by default: "Still on 'Send the invoice'?" "You have 'Send the invoice'. I have my book." The only interruption from outside the session is a routine at its minute, the one OS banner Kaapi ever sends, with the macOS Glass chime and the routine's name: "'Water the plants'?" A routine at 9:00 is a switch you chose in advance, so it is the one we let through.
Drift is noticed, not counted. Every 4 seconds during a session, Kaapi checks which app is in front, and with Screen Recording allowed it reads the window's title too. No screenshot, no recording; titles stay in memory and are dropped. When you have been in a distracting app for a while, Timi notices and asks, and the drift is saved on your Mac only. You can pause the whole thing from the menu bar. Nothing is counted back at you.
How to do this without Kaapi
Make the switches fewer before you make yourself faster.
- Before you sit down, pick one task and write it on a card. Turn the list face down.
- Turn off every notification not tied to a time you chose. Let the alarm for your 9:00 routine be the only thing allowed to interrupt.
- When you leave a task, write its next step on the card first. The switch back is then one line, not a search.
- When you notice you have drifted, notice it once and go back. No count, no scolding.
The switches you keep will still cost what they cost. There will be fewer of them, and at five you will have something to show.
Frequently asked questions
Why is switching tasks so hard with ADHD?
Every switch costs time and errors right after it, for everyone, even when it was expected. With ADHD the switch back costs more, because it is hard to hold where you were in your head, so you return to the task cold. And the switch away happens more often, because an ADHD brain follows what is new.
What are ADHD transitions?
Transitions is the community's word for the gap between finishing one thing and starting the next: the space where you fall into your phone, or stand in the kitchen, or reload the same page. The cost lives in the gap, not in either task. Fewer gaps, and a written next step, make each one shorter.
How do I get back on task after an interruption?
Read the next step you wrote before you left. If you did not write one, write it now, one physical act with one object, and do only it. Notice the interruption once and count nothing. In a 2008 study, interrupted work got finished faster and the cost was stress; scolding yourself adds to it.
Is multitasking bad for ADHD?
Multitasking is switching with a nicer name, and each switch costs time and errors right after it. A 2003 review found the cost stays even when people are prepared for the switch. One task per sitting, with the rest out of sight, costs less than two tasks side by side, for any brain, and more so for this one.
Sources
- Monsell, S. (2003). Task switching. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 134–140. doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00028-7. A review.
- Mark, G., Gudith, D., and Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress. CHI 2008, 107–110. doi.org/10.1145/1357054.1357072. One lab study.
- Alderson, R. M., Kasper, L. J., Hudec, K. L., and Patros, C. H. G. (2013). Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and working memory in adults: A meta-analytic review. Neuropsychology, 27(3), 287–302. doi.org/10.1037/a0032371. 38 studies, adults.
- Dodson, W. (updated 2025). How adults with ADHD think: Uncomfortable truths about the ADHD nervous system. ADDitude. additudemag.com/adhd-in-adults-nervous-system. A clinical model from practice, not a trial.