One morning, M noticed that coffee will probably run out by the end of the week. Within seconds, M switches from skimming an article in a newspaper app, to the Amazon app. M scans the coffee jar's bar-code, selects the matching product in the search results, and uses the 1-Click purchase option to pay. A new package of coffee will be delivered the next day and M is back to the newspaper, waiting for the water in the kettle to boil.

M is not an impatient or impulsive person, and yet, when it comes to spontaneous purchases that occur at a point of need, M has a propensity for bypassing more rational and economical ways to purchase goods. These include options such as combining multiple items in a single order, price comparison, and exploration of new options--the type of actions that characterized M's shopping behavior only a few years ago.

Grocery shopping, which for M used to be a time-consuming weekend activity that included preparing a shopping list and making trips to several stores, has now blended flawlessly into M's daily bursts of atomic online purchases, often of a single item.

In fact, during the 10 minutes that pass between waking up and taking a sip from the first coffee of the day, M completes numerous tasks, some compound, other micro-tasks, some sequential and other simultaneous. Here's a partial list: 

1. M is brushing teeth while scanning the news, Skype, and WhatsApp notifications that popped overnight on M's smartphone's screen
2. M is filling the kettle with water, turning it on, and adding a teaspoon of instant coffee to a coffee cup, al the while scanning the list of unread email
3. While waiting for the water in the kettle to boil, M is deleting unwanted email, reading new email, ordering coffee online, responding to emails when a brief response appropriate, and scanning the breaking news section on a newspaper app
4. As soon as the kettle beeps, M is getting the milk out of the refrigerator, pouring boiling water into the cup and adding the milk. These activities are done using the left hand, because the right is holding the phone so that M can continue reading the news
5. While drinking this first cup of coffee, M is quickly checking the weather app, then switching back to the news and beginning to prepare a second cup of coffee
6. While all of this is happening, M is thinking about the day ahead -- meetings and deadlines at work, evening plans with the family, and the contents of the emails and news scanned earlier

Just reading the list is exhausting, and yet M makes no mental effort to perform so many simultaneous tasks in rapid succession.

Experience designers spend a lot of time understanding tasks in order to optimize, simplify, and if possible, eliminate extraneous aspects. Tasks can be prioritized by the frequency of their occurrence, how dependent they are on other tasks, whether they take precedence over other tasks, their complexity, and so on:

• Tasks that require multi-step processes and take longer to complete are divided into subtasks
• Bursts of independent tasks are squeezed into available slots between the subtasks of multi-step ones
• Many subtasks are more demanding then they appear to be. For example, pouring boiling water into a cup requires coordination and care to avoid bodily injury, and sorting through a list of work-related emails requires concentration and snap judgment.

Another observation about the sequence of tasks M completes in the morning, is how unique it is to our times. M's primary activity is preparing and drinking coffee--an experience that is centuries old. Interspersing morning coffee with a complex array of personal and work related tasks performed in quick succession--this reflects a behavioral change enabled by the fusion of technology and experience design.

The availability of all manner of content on demand - anytime, anywhere - is powerful. Our habits and behavioral patterns change as we fold into our lives the devices and activities that deliver this rich access at a relatively low cost. We adapt and learn to fill the gaps between life-sustaining activities with bursts of new activities.

And so, M can accomplish a lot while idling. Throughout the day M keeps checking news and other social network sites regularly. Various apps send notifications to M's phone, which can be accessed from M's laptop, phone, and iPad. M still subscribes to the home delivery of the Sunday edition of the New York Times. It used to be an anticipated weekend leisure activity, but the truth is that nowadays, M never finds the time to sit down and enjoy the paper. In fact, M begins to feel stressed from the intense and seemingly never-ending interaction with technology. Technology, which was supposed to save time and money, seems to be all consuming and, micro transaction by micro transaction, also expensive.

In recognition of user fatigue and mental overload, experience designers must develop and continually evolve engagement strategies that deal with task fragmentation and shorter attention spans.