What is context switching

When the timer is up, slowly rise, do a stretch that feels good to you, and ease back into your next task. Apps like Headspace offer a ton of different meditation options depending on your preferences. Zigzagging between unrelated tasks is downright stressful. Group similar tasks and tackle them in succession to make transitioning to new projects more seamless. Group your tasks in whatever way reduces the most friction in your schedule to make for a more blissful workday.

There is no need to juggle. As Loom's Hybrid Experience Manager, Karina oversees Loom's internal communication and culture-building initiatives leveraging the power of asynchronous video messaging.

She was previously Loom's Content Marketing Manager. What is context switching, and how does it impact your work? Optimize for focus time. There will inevitably be incoming tasks that threaten to interrupt your time block or Pomodoro. Instead of letting them derail your work session, save the task to your task manager so you can come back to it later. And yet, how many times have we stepped away from our computers for food or water only to come back with renewed focus and clarity?

Breaks give our beleaguered brains a chance to refresh and recharge. Something beats nothing. High performers work for fifty-two minutes and then break for seventeen minutes. Moving beats stationary. Social beats solo. Research in South Korean workplaces shows that social breaks — talking with coworkers about something other than work — are more effective at reducing stress and improving mood than either cognitive breaks answering e-mail or nutrition breaks getting a snack.

Outside beats inside. People who take short walks outdoors return with better moods and greater replenishment than people who walk indoors.

Fully detached beats semi-detached. Tech-free breaks also increase vigor and reduce emotional exhaustion. Simply noting a distraction makes the unconscious conscious. Keep a log for a week. Every time you get distracted, write down the time and where the distraction came from. At the end of the week, look back on your distraction log. Are there patterns to what triggers a context switch? Are you more likely to be distracted at certain times of the day? Or in certain places? Noting distractions will help you become aware of the triggers that lead you to interrupt yourself , like low energy, boredom, or stress.

That way, when something tempts you to interrupt yourself, you can take a break or get a snack, rather than open Twitter. Try to focus on one task, screen, app, and window at a time, and eliminate what causes you to switch contexts in the first place — the buzzes and screen notifications and excess tabs in your web browser:.

When we have too many apps to go between, we have to dig around to figure out what we need to do, which leads to context switching. And, when our digital spaces are cluttered, it takes up space in our heads too. As Catherine Price, author of How to break up with your phone told us in a recent interview :. That alone makes us less efficient. The modern workplace is only getting busier. But the more you let yourself fall into context switching, the harder it is to hit your goals and feel good about the work you do.

Multitasking is a myth. And the only way to do more in less time is to focus on one at a time. Want to learn more about spending your time well and doing more meaningful work? Get our latest blog posts in your inbox every week. Jory MacKay is a writer, content marketer, and editor of the RescueTime blog. Read More From Time Management. Context switching happens when your schedule is either too full too many things to work on or too empty not enough structure to stay focused.

Most of us have built a habit of task switching through how we use work tools like email or chat. Routines and rituals.

There are also unconscious actions you take throughout the day that cause you to switch. Sign Up for the Newsletter Want to learn more about spending your time well and doing more meaningful work? One comment Thanks Mr Jory For sharing such a nice article, really informative.

But in reality, it should continue from that point where it left the CPU in its previous execution. So, the context of the process should be saved before putting any other process in the running state.

A context is the contents of a CPU's registers and program counter at any point in time. Context switching can happen due to the following reasons:. The process of context switching involves a number of steps. The following diagram depicts the process of context switching between the two processes P1 and P2. In the above figure, you can see that initially, the process P1 is in the running state and the process P2 is in the ready state. Now, when some interruption occurs then you have to switch the process P1 from running to the ready state after saving the context and the process P2 from ready to running state.

The following steps will be performed:. For context switching to happen, two processes are at least required in general, and in the case of the round-robin algorithm, you can perform context switching with the help of one process only. The time involved in the context switching of one process by other is called the Context Switching Time.