Multitasking. I say it's spinach
When I was a kid, we had a big book of New Yorker cartoons. The only one I remember- and I've loved it since I first saw it- is the one of mother and kid seated at the dinner table with the mother kind of looming over the child. The caption is:
Mother: "It's broccoli dear"
Child: "I say it's spinach and I say to hell with it".
And that is how I feel about multitasking. It may be all well and good for computers to multitask, and that's where the idea originated, but it's not transferable to people. Multitasking is frustrating, stress inducing and it's spinach. It leads to sloppy work sowed with errors.
From Wiki:
Because the brain cannot fully focus when multitasking, people take longer to complete tasks and are predisposed to error. When people attempt to complete many tasks at one time, “or [alternate] rapidly between them, errors go way up and it takes far longer—often double the time or more—to get the jobs done than if they were done sequentially,” states Meyer.[9] This is largely because “the brain is compelled to restart and refocus”.[10] A study by Meyer and David Kieras found that in the interim between each exchange, the brain makes no progress whatsoever. Therefore, multitasking people not only perform each task less suitably, but lose time in the process.
When presented with much information, the brain is forced to pause and refocus continuously as one switches between tasks.[10] Realistically, this is “a rapid toggling among tasks rather than simultaneous processing.” According to a study done by Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, “the most anterior part [of the brain] allows [a person] to leave something when it’s incomplete and return to the same place and continue from there,” while Broadman’s Area 10, a part of the brain’s frontal lobes, is important for establishing and attaining long term goals.[9] Focusing on multiple dissimilar tasks at once forces the brain to process all activity in its anterior. Though the brain is complex and can perform a myriad of tasks, it cannot multitask well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_multitasking
There's a mountain of evidence that multitasking leads to less productivity and reduced effectiveness, but we're constantly being pressured to do it and given tips about how to do it... better.
There's a simple solution: Do one thing at a time. Do it to the best of your ability and focus as completely as you can on that task or thing.
Multitasking is spinach and I say fuck it.
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