{
  "id": "F-06",
  "url": "https://evy.so/facts/time-lost-switching-apps/",
  "chapter": "Where the Week Goes",
  "question": "How much time do people lose switching between apps at work?",
  "answer": "About 3 to 4 hours a week goes to getting back on track after switching apps. Logging software (just under 4 hours) and self-reports (36 minutes a day) agree within about an hour.",
  "range": {
    "low": 3,
    "high": 4,
    "unit": "hours a week lost after switching apps",
    "display": "3–4 h a week lost getting back on track after switching apps"
  },
  "confidence": "medium",
  "confidence_reason": "Two independent studies, one logged and one self-reported, agree within about an hour. Counts of switches per day differ by a factor of 50 between sources, so they are kept out of the range.",
  "last_checked": "2026-10-13",
  "how_to_read": "The HBR figure comes from logging software at three Fortune 500 companies, mostly in operations-style teams, so it may run high for other roles. Qatalog's is self-reported; 36 minutes a day is about 3 hours over a 5-day week. Counts of switches and counts of apps measure different things, so they are shown separately below and kept out of the range.",
  "sources": [
    {
      "creator": "Rohan Narayana Murty, Sandeep Dadlani and Rajath B. Das (Soroco)",
      "title": "How Much Time and Energy Do We Waste Toggling Between Applications? (Harvard Business Review)",
      "year": 2022,
      "sample": "137 users in 20 teams at three Fortune 500 companies",
      "method": "Logging software for up to five weeks, observed. Soroco sells work-pattern software.",
      "figure": "About 1,200 toggles a day; just under 4 hours a week reorienting, about 9% of time at work",
      "url": "https://hbr.org/2022/08/how-much-time-and-energy-do-we-waste-toggling-between-applications",
      "quote": "just under four hours a week reorienting themselves after toggling"
    },
    {
      "creator": "Qatalog with Cornell University's Ellis Idea Lab",
      "title": "Workgeist Report '21",
      "year": 2021,
      "sample": "Three surveys of about 1,000 remote workers each, US and UK",
      "method": "Online surveys, March 2021, self-reported. Qatalog sells a work hub.",
      "figure": "36 minutes a day switching between apps; 9.5 minutes to get back into a good workflow",
      "url": "https://qatalog.com/",
      "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210624191022/https://assets.qatalog.com/language.work/qatalog-2021-workgeist-report.pdf",
      "quote": "taking 9 and a half minutes on average to get back into a good workflow"
    }
  ],
  "related_findings": [
    {
      "question": "How many times a day do people switch between apps?",
      "answer": "It depends on who counts. People report about 25 switches a day between 10 apps (Asana, 2021). Logging software records far more: 391 to 661 window switches a day (Mark and colleagues, 2014) and about 1,200 toggles between apps and websites (Harvard Business Review, 2022). Self-reported counts are likely too low.",
      "sources": [
        {
          "creator": "Asana, survey by Sapio Research",
          "title": "Anatomy of Work Index 2021",
          "year": 2021,
          "sample": "13,123 knowledge workers in seven countries",
          "method": "Online survey, October 2020, self-reported",
          "figure": "10 apps and 25 switches between them a day (US: 13 apps, 30 switches)",
          "url": "https://asana.com/resources/anatomy-of-work-index",
          "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210301155022/https://resources.asana.com/rs/784-XZD-582/images/PDF-FY21-Global-EN-Anatomy%20of%20Work%20Report.pdf",
          "quote": "on average people switch between 10 apps 25 times per day"
        },
        {
          "creator": "Gloria Mark, Shamsi Iqbal, Mary Czerwinski and Paul Johns",
          "title": "Bored Mondays and Focused Afternoons (ACM CHI 2014)",
          "year": 2014,
          "sample": "32 information workers at one US company, 5 days each",
          "method": "Logging software plus experience sampling, observed. Peer-reviewed.",
          "figure": "661 window switches a day on Mondays, 391 on Fridays",
          "url": "https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2556288.2557204",
          "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20240705042331/https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2556288.2557204"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "question": "How many apps does a knowledge worker use in a day?",
      "answer": "About 9 to 10, self-reported: 10 in Asana's 2021 survey and 9 in 2022, with 13 in the US. Companies deploy far more: Okta's customers average 101 apps each, and 74 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.",
      "sources": [
        {
          "creator": "Asana, survey by GWI",
          "title": "Anatomy of Work Index 2022",
          "year": 2022,
          "sample": "10,624 knowledge workers in seven countries",
          "method": "Online survey, October 2021, self-reported",
          "figure": "9 apps a day, down from 10",
          "url": "https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220405005399/en/Asana-Anatomy-of-Work-Index-2022-Work-About-Work-Hampering-Organizational-Agility",
          "archive_url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20260411014513/https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220405005399/en/Asana-Anatomy-of-Work-Index-2022-Work-About-Work-Hampering-Organizational-Agility",
          "quote": "workers are using slightly fewer apps per day (9) than last year (10)"
        },
        {
          "creator": "Okta",
          "title": "Businesses at Work 2025",
          "year": 2025,
          "sample": "Anonymized data from thousands of Okta customers",
          "method": "Apps connected per company in Okta's network, 2024 data. A company-level count.",
          "figure": "101 apps per company on average; 74 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa",
          "url": "https://www.okta.com/blog/2025/03/businesses-at-work-2025",
          "quote": "The average number of apps each company uses reached 101 this year"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "numbers_you_may_have_seen": [
    {
      "claim": "It takes 23 minutes 15 seconds to refocus after switching apps.",
      "what_the_source_says": "That figure comes from research on interruptions, and it measures the time until people return to interrupted work. See F-04."
    },
    {
      "claim": "The average person toggles more than 3,600 times a day.",
      "what_the_source_says": "We found no study behind it. The largest logged count we found is about 1,200 toggles a day (HBR, 2022)."
    },
    {
      "claim": "Slack: workers switch between 10 or more apps a day and lose nearly 100 minutes.",
      "what_the_source_says": "It appears on a Slack product page citing unnamed research. We could not find the study."
    }
  ],
  "citation": "EVY (2026). How much time do people lose switching between apps at work? The AI at Work Fact Book, F-06. https://evy.so/facts/time-lost-switching-apps/ (last checked October 13, 2026). CC BY 4.0.",
  "license": "CC BY 4.0"
}