The big shift with agents is that it’s now technically feasible — and consequently tempting — to launch multiple workstreams. In fact, the entire agentic workflow actively encourages it. I mean, when launching an agentic task, I never know what the wait time will be. Are we talking 30 seconds, or do I have to watch the internal LLM ramblings for 25 minutes? That wait time is like an open invitation for self-interruptions, which are the most damaging types of context switches. AI coding just gives us so many passive pause points: waiting, reviewing, correcting, waiting again, ad infinitum.

To avoid getting bored, it’s tempting to embark on a second and third task in parallel just to stay busy. This is often a mistake: agents scale; human attention doesn’t.

I can very much relate to this, particularly with my neurodiverse brain that wants to remain stimulated. I've fallen into the trap of launching multiple agents, all working on different projects, and it never works out well as my attention gets fragmented, and I become overwhelmed.