The Productivity Cost of Switching Tabs

The Productivity Podcast with Fexingo: Output, Efficiency, and Long-Term Economic Growth · May 23, 2026 · 7m · transcript

Every time you switch tabs or glance at Slack, you pay a cognitive switching cost that few companies track. In this episode, Lucas and Luna unpack the research behind 'attention residue'—the hidden tax on deep work. They look at a Microsoft study showing it takes 23 minutes to refocus after a single interruption, and explore how one Danish design firm redesigned its entire workflow around blocking context switches. Plus, they ask whether the new generation of AI assistants might finally reduce the switching tax, or if they're making it worse. No ads, just a clear look at one of…