Key evidence & numbers
| Outcome | What is measured | Why it differs |
|---|---|---|
| Time until returning to a task | Includes intervening work and choices | Not continuous time spent unable to focus |
| Resumption lag | Time to restart after interruption ends | Depends on task and memory for goals |
| Attention residue | Carryover from a previous task | Can affect performance without a fixed clock |
The field study examines the organisation of work, not a universal physiological reset. A person may work on other tasks before returning to an interrupted one. Interpreting that elapsed time as uninterrupted inability to concentrate changes what was measured. Mark et al., 2005
What does laboratory resumption research show?
Trafton and colleagues compared an immediate interruption with a warning condition that allowed eight seconds before the interruption began. Participants with warning prepared more and resumed more quickly. This supports a role for prospective preparation and memory for the original goal, not one invariant recovery time. Trafton et al., 2003
Altmann and Trafton's model describes how goal activation and retrieval can influence restarting. Leroy's experiments examine attention residue when people switch away from unfinished work. These accounts concern related but distinct processes, so their measures should not be combined into a single universal minute estimate. Altmann et al., 2002 Leroy, 2009
Can people compensate for interruptions?
In Mark and colleagues' experiment, interrupted participants completed tasks faster without a quality difference, but reported more stress, frustration, time pressure and effort. Faster completion therefore did not establish that interruptions were harmless. This is another example of why one productivity metric is incomplete. Mark et al., 2008
What affects it?
Are all breaks equivalent to interruptions?
No. A planned rest break and an unexpected demand to do a different task can have different purposes and demands. The microbreak meta-analysis finds small benefits for vigor and fatigue, with an uncertain average performance effect. It does not establish that every interruption is restorative or that every break imposes the same switching cost. Albulescu et al., 2022
Sustained attention also fluctuates over time. Research on those fluctuations does not describe a person as either fully focused or universally unavailable for one fixed period. The actual task and the performance outcome remain important. Esterman et al., 2013
What can you realistically change?
When the situation allows, preserving a clear cue about the next step is consistent with the resumption research. The specific experimental support concerns preparation around an interruption; it is not a guarantee that writing one note eliminates all real-world switching costs. The strength of that inference should stay modest. Trafton et al., 2003 Altmann et al., 2002
For personal observation, distinguish time away from a task from time needed to restart it. Record the kind of interruption, whether the original task was unfinished and what outcome you care about. Otherwise, a long elapsed gap can be mistaken for a long cognitive recovery even when other work was completed. Mark et al., 2005 Leroy, 2009
What can a switching game tell you?
A controlled switching task can illustrate the cost of changing rules. It cannot convert a brief laboratory-style difference into minutes of lost workplace productivity. Reliability research further cautions against treating a short difference score as a fixed individual trait. Hedge et al., 2017
The evidence supports taking interruption context seriously. It does not support applying an automatic 23-minute tax to every notification, conversation or planned pause, regardless of what the person actually does next. Mark et al., 2005 Trafton et al., 2003
Try the related free test
Task switching test
Try the task switching test to experience alternating between rules. It measures its own task performance, not how many minutes you lose after a work interruption. Keep that distinction when comparing the game with your day.
Common questions
Is the 23-minute figure a universal fact?
No. Returning to a task, restarting it and recovering a particular performance measure are different outcomes. Mark et al., 2005 Trafton et al., 2003
Can preparing before an interruption help?
A controlled study found faster resumption after an eight-second warning that enabled preparation. The size of a real-world benefit is not guaranteed. Trafton et al., 2003
Are planned breaks bad for focus?
The microbreak evidence finds small benefits for fatigue and vigor, with less certain overall performance benefits. Planned breaks should not be equated with every interruption. Albulescu et al., 2022
Sources
- Mark et al. (2005). No task left behind?.
- Trafton et al. (2003). Preparing to resume an interrupted task: effects of prospective goal encoding and retrospective rehearsal.
- Altmann et al. (2002). Memory for goals: an activation‐based model.
- Leroy (2009). Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks.
- Mark et al. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: more speed and stress.
- Albulescu et al. (2022). "Give me a break!" A systematic review and meta-analysis on the efficacy of micro-breaks for increasing well-being and performance.
- Esterman et al. (2013). In the Zone or Zoning Out? Tracking Behavioral and Neural Fluctuations During Sustained Attention.
- Hedge et al. (2017). The reliability paradox: Why robust cognitive tasks do not produce reliable individual differences.
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