The Multitasking Myth

Multitasking is a myth. You know that, right? Most of you have heard about it already, just like me. For those of you that did not know that, this will be a chance to find out why and how. For the rest of us, a good reminder to avoid this as much as possible, since it is easy to forget.

The Research

According to the research done in the last three decades, scientists have proven that multitasking is definitely a myth. There is no such thing as doing two or more things at the same time. Multitasking is actually shifting (switching) back and forth from one activity to the other. In that process, which takes only a fraction of a second, you are losing focus and concentration. If you are doing it all the time, your efficiency will definitely drop and you will inevitably start making mistakes. ‘’Although switch costs may be relatively small, sometimes just a few tenths of a second per switch, they can add up to large amounts when people switch repeatedly back and forth between tasks. Thus, multitasking may seem efficient on the surface but may actually take more time in the end and involve more error. Meyer has said that even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time. ‘’ (https://www.apa.org/research/action/multitask ; this research is: Rubinstein, J. S., Meyer, D. E. & Evans, J. E. (2001). Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27, 763–797.)

This means that if you had to do 2 tasks that take around 30 minutes each, you would need up to 84 minutes to finish it and you would make more mistakes than you usually do. Then you would need to correct those mistakes, which would require extra time to do it. But if you did these two tasks one at the time, you could have finished them in approximately 60 minutes, stress free, with much less effort and mistakes on your part.

It's business as usual

Multitasking creates a lot of problems in our everyday lives. For example, what if you are working as an employee and your superior gives you another assignment which need to be done asap, along with your regular duties. ‘’Wait, but this could never happen’’ — said no one never! As you all know, this is a typical business- related situation that has happened to most of us. We would consider it normal and with some extra effort, carry it into effect. But as expected, you will need a lot of time and it will be far from perfect. As a consequence, your boss will not be satisfied with your work, which is also expected.

The problem is that your boss and his boss and his bosses’ boss either do not know or completely ignore that fact that multitasking is not an effective process. They know that some task has to be done and they delegate it to their employees. It is your job to do it and to do it right. In some cases, we will be able pull it off but mostly the results will not be satisfying. The reason is unrealistic expectation from your boss that you will do that task just as efficient, while juggling few other tasks at the same.

The Conclusion

The reason why I am writing about the multitasking is mostly selfish. We often forget that multitasking is an ineffective illusion: you are reading one book, then you remembered something from the second one you started. After 20 minutes, you start writing down some ideas for the article, but then have a great idea for another one so you jump over there etc. When you stop to think about it, you have spent around 5 hours doing bunch of stuff, but you did not really accomplish anything (that was an example of how I spent last Thursday!).

The only thing that multitasking is doing is ‘’keeping you busy’’ and usually under stress, but you are not getting things done; at least, not in the right way. You are switching between tasks that can be very important and valuable for you. However, by doing this you are losing lot of time and energy, all under the impression that you are being super productive… And you are far from it.

Our consciousness is made to accomplish one task at the time. Anything more than that, can be very confusing and irritating, especially for our male brains :).

Until we find a way to re-wire our brains, so we can do more tasks simultaneously with the same efficiency, we should stick to one task at the time. Sounds reasonable??