How Good Are You At Multitasking

Do you pride yourself on being able to juggle multiple tasks well? I have sometimes been accused of preferring to do one task at a time, as if that is a crime. But after reading an article in a US publication I feel somewhat vindicated.

The essence of the article is that many people who feel good about achieving more while multitasking may only really be just feeling that. Studies show that when a person is given a task and then distracted by another task at the same time total productivity suffers. For those who do manage better it has been suggested it may be more a case of how they handle the distraction. It is known that creative persons actually work better when not distracted.

Mind you, men are often accused of only being able to concentrate on one thing at at time. Most prefer to work that way. Many women though seem to be able to keep track of many things at once. It does seem to be in the nature of a women to be able to juggle family commitments as well as the logistics of their work work. But essentially that just demonstrates the way we are all created. In reality though, it is not very efficient to try to keep two major projects going along at once. Our brains are just not made to cope with that.

Benefits In Education

Knowing this may have benefits. Some teachers are going to the extent of banning computers from the classroom and even hand written note taking during the lesson. On the basis of students being able to retain more whilst being focused on the lesson. Notes may then be provided by the teacher.

Benefits In Business

Some good advice for business people and especially those working alone for themselves. Set yourself a task to do for say 20 minutes without being distracted by anything else. Only check your email or social media etc. at a specific time in the day and for a specific time period. At certain times change your task or do something to relax with for a short time. Then do some other task for a period.

Computers Are Better At It Then Us

Maybe we should just leave these tasks to computers. A computer by design is able to do more than one thing at a time. That is, provided the computer is functioning properly and has the power to actually do this. Past experience has taught me that it is not always the case. The Windows operating system is known for this. An older operating system developed by IBM, OS2, was very good at being able to run programs and entire tasks in a separate environment such that if one crashed the other would still be running in the background.

All things considered, there is after all good reason to stick to one thing at a time and do it well.

Author: Paul