Rise, the Educated Being tells us that Learning and multitasking are not good friends
In my personal experience, multitasking leaves me unsatisfied with my work except when I am doing trivial or repetitive tasks and the goal is just to finish the tasks rather than learning something new. When the goal of a task includes learning, e.g., reviewing research papers for publications, I find it efficient to do the tasks one at a time. Serial execution also gives me satisfaction as I get enough time to absorb what I learned and to think about new ideas.
The quote above comes from about half way through the article, after he describes what multitasking does (a familiar story for the anti-multitasking crowd) and how it impacts learning in particular.
I find these comments parallel my processes as well. When I really want to pay attention to something, I turn off external distractions -- or I set it aside for a time when I have fewer distractions. This is how I end up with a dozen tabs open in my browser with to-be-considered information, or several editor windows open with to-be-written articles.