How multitasking is a faulty idea and its severe impact on performance

Pause right here and take a second to look at everything in front of you right now. Do you have a lot of tabs open in your browser right now? Are you working and reading this blog at the same time? Are there other tasks running in the background? While doing all this, are you on your phone curating a great reply to your crush's message?

My friend, this is MULTITASKING.

I used to be one of those people who loved bragging about my multitasking skills. I thought it was cool to say that I fall under the category of multitaskers. Only when I started reading books and articles about this topic. I realized that I was mistaken all along.

Multitasking is a scam! (Sorry to put it so bluntly)

During my research, I came across the broad categories of multitasking.

1. Concurrent Multitasking - When you do two or more tasks at the same time. For example: Talking on the phone while driving (not adviceable), Compiling your code, or taking care of some other task while you are in a meeting.

2. Serial Multitasking - In this, you constantly switch context. Jumping from one task to another. For example: Drafting an email and scrolling through Instagram in between, Replying to a message, Running the code, and going back to drafting that email (or forgetting about it).

Multitasking has become so mainstream that people think it is something they should do, as often as possible.They think that they only have limited numbers of hours to get a butt load of things done. Cramping all of them at once will help in ticking them off quickly.

The notion of multitasking making you efficient and allowing you to get more work done is the biggest lie of all.

When we move from one task to the next one, it takes time for our attention to catch up. The residual piece of ideas and lingering thoughts remain even after checking off the task. In the flow of switching between tasks, we forget to filter out which task was relevant and end up spending time on trivial tasks. We are self-interrupting and are not even aware of how often we divert our attention from our main task.

Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time - Steve Uzzell

Not so good consequences of multitasking:

• We are prone to make more mistakes. There is a shift in the thought process and a lot of the time our brain struggles to keep the separation intact. Mixing up one piece from one task into another task.

• Reduces productivity significantly. While multitasking there are many loose ends that we need to tie when we constantly switch back and forth between two tasks. Reason being multitaskers are wired to favor new information over the old one even if the old one was more important, leaving it hanging in the middle.

• Multitasking retains less information and impacts working memory causing stress and anxiety. Research also says that it impacts one's IQ. There is only so much brain capability you can utilise at one time. Divide it up as much as you want, but you will pay the price in time and effectiveness.
  

I can list several more negatively impacting consequences but I think the idea got conveyed. Now that we have established how unreliable this whole multitasking game is.

Some suggestions/tips that helped me in becoming a single tasker:

• While doing any task that requires me to put in efforts and demands active thinking. I ensure that I do not supply energy to any other task and solely focus on this one.

• In a working environment where we have a lot of meetings, emails, Mircosoft teams' messages that deserve our attention. What helped me was to use the feature of blocking my calendar with Focus Time. I change my status to DND and focus on one single high-priority task and not do anything else (checking phone is prohibited too)

• One can go to an extreme length and block the applications that can be distracting to them. I have fortunately never been a victim of getting distracted easily by applications while working (I can't promise otherwise :P).

• Overall this is not rocket science it is fairly simple - ONE THING AT ONE TIME FOR A NOTABLE TIME.

To sum up, I would say multitasking is not all bad. Playing certain instrumental music while reading helps me in blocking the outside noise and concentrate better. Listening to certain songs pumps me up during workouts. Talking to a friend on call while walking attains my step count goal. If the task at hand is easy and your brain subconsciously is trained to do it. In that case, multitasking has a petty downside. So be smart in using multitasking to your advantage :)

I would like to leave you with a question (I came across this while reading a book)

If doing the most important thing is the most important thing, why would you try to do anything else?

On this note, Let's encourage and celebrate single taskers (the smart ones).

See you next Monday. Until then Mask up, Stay Safe, and Stay Healthy.