--- title: "How much time do people lose switching between apps at work? (3–4 h) | The AI at Work Fact Book" description: "People lose about 3 to 4 hours a week reorienting after switching apps. How many switches and apps a day, with sources and method." url: "https://evy.so/facts/time-lost-switching-apps/" last_updated: "2026-10-16" --- F-06 · Where the Week Goes # How much time do people lose switching between apps at work? 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. 3–4 h a week lost getting back on track after switching apps - Medium confidence - 2 primary sources - 2021 to 2022 - Last checked October 13, 2026 ## Cite this 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. Copy citation [Data as JSON](https://evy.so/facts/time-lost-switching-apps.json) [Markdown](https://evy.so/facts/time-lost-switching-apps.md) ## How to read it 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. ## Every study on one scale Shaded: 3–4 h One figure Chart values as text - Scale: hours a week lost after switching. Shaded range: 3–4 h. - Murty et al., HBR (2022): just under 4 h (9%) - Qatalog / Cornell (2021): 36 min a day (3 h) **Why medium confidence:** 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. ## Sources Sources for F-06 | Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | How Much Time and Energy Do We Waste Toggling Between Applications? (Harvard Business Review) | Rohan Narayana Murty, Sandeep Dadlani and Rajath B. Das (Soroco) | 2022 | 137 users in 20 teams at three Fortune 500 companies | Logging software for up to five weeks, observed. Soroco sells work-pattern software. | About 1,200 toggles a day; just under 4 hours a week reorienting, about 9% of time at work “just under four hours a week reorienting themselves after toggling” | [hbr.org ↗](https://hbr.org/2022/08/how-much-time-and-energy-do-we-waste-toggling-between-applications) | | Workgeist Report '21 | Qatalog with Cornell University's Ellis Idea Lab | 2021 | Three surveys of about 1,000 remote workers each, US and UK | Online surveys, March 2021, self-reported. Qatalog sells a work hub. | 36 minutes a day switching between apps; 9.5 minutes to get back into a good workflow “taking 9 and a half minutes on average to get back into a good workflow” | [qatalog.com ↗](https://qatalog.com/) [Archived copy ↗](https://web.archive.org/web/20210624191022/https://assets.qatalog.com/language.work/qatalog-2021-workgeist-report.pdf) Qatalog is now part of ClickUp and no longer hosts the report; the archived copy is the original PDF. | Switches a day ## How many times a day do people switch between apps? 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. How many times a day do people switch between apps? | Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Anatomy of Work Index 2021 | Asana, survey by Sapio Research | 2021 | 13,123 knowledge workers in seven countries | Online survey, October 2020, self-reported | 10 apps and 25 switches between them a day (US: 13 apps, 30 switches) “on average people switch between 10 apps 25 times per day” | [asana.com ↗](https://asana.com/resources/anatomy-of-work-index) [Archived copy ↗](https://web.archive.org/web/20210301155022/https://resources.asana.com/rs/784-XZD-582/images/PDF-FY21-Global-EN-Anatomy%20of%20Work%20Report.pdf) Archived copy of the full 2021 report PDF. | | Bored Mondays and Focused Afternoons (ACM CHI 2014) | Gloria Mark, Shamsi Iqbal, Mary Czerwinski and Paul Johns | 2014 | 32 information workers at one US company, 5 days each | Logging software plus experience sampling, observed. Peer-reviewed. | 661 window switches a day on Mondays, 391 on Fridays | [dl.acm.org ↗](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2556288.2557204) [Archived copy ↗](https://web.archive.org/web/20240705042331/https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/2556288.2557204) | Apps in use ## How many apps does a knowledge worker use in a day? 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. How many apps does a knowledge worker use in a day? | Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Anatomy of Work Index 2022 | Asana, survey by GWI | 2022 | 10,624 knowledge workers in seven countries | Online survey, October 2021, self-reported | 9 apps a day, down from 10 “workers are using slightly fewer apps per day (9) than last year (10)” | [businesswire.com ↗](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220405005399/en/Asana-Anatomy-of-Work-Index-2022-Work-About-Work-Hampering-Organizational-Agility) [Archived copy ↗](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) | | Businesses at Work 2025 | Okta | 2025 | Anonymized data from thousands of Okta customers | Apps connected per company in Okta's network, 2024 data. A company-level count. | 101 apps per company on average; 74 in Europe, the Middle East and Africa “The average number of apps each company uses reached 101 this year” | [okta.com ↗](https://www.okta.com/blog/2025/03/businesses-at-work-2025) | ## Numbers you may have seen These figures circulate widely. Here is what the original source says. - **It takes 23 minutes 15 seconds to refocus after switching apps.** That figure comes from research on interruptions, and it measures the time until people return to interrupted work. See F-04. - **The average person toggles more than 3,600 times a day.** We found no study behind it. The largest logged count we found is about 1,200 toggles a day (HBR, 2022). - **Slack: workers switch between 10 or more apps a day and lose nearly 100 minutes.** It appears on a Slack product page citing unnamed research. We could not find the study. ## More from Where the Week Goes - [F-01**19–25%**How much of the work week do knowledge workers spend searching for information?](https://evy.so/facts/time-spent-searching-for-information/) - [F-02**53–61%**How much of the work day goes to coordinating work rather than doing it?](https://evy.so/facts/time-on-work-about-work/) - [F-03**3–18 h**How many hours a week do people spend in meetings, and how much of it is wasted?](https://evy.so/facts/time-in-meetings/) - [F-04**20–26 min**How long does it take to get back to a task after an interruption?](https://evy.so/facts/time-to-resume-after-interruption/) - [F-05**13–28%**How much of the work week do knowledge workers spend on email and chat?](https://evy.so/facts/time-on-email-and-chat/) - [F-07**4.6–5.7 h**How much time do people spend redoing work that already exists?](https://evy.so/facts/time-spent-duplicating-work/) [The whole chapter](https://evy.so/facts/where-the-week-goes/) · [Chapter poster](https://evy.so/facts/where-the-week-goes/sheet/) · [All of The AI at Work Fact Book](https://evy.so/facts/)