multitasking

I have never claimed to be a good multitasker. In fact, I am a horrible multitasker. I can generally manage two truly simultaneous tasks if I am only weakly committed to one of them, but that is the limit. The more I learn about multitasking, though, the more I determine that there is no such thing as a good multitasker.

I started thinking about this when I came across a Wall Street Journal article that questioned whether the Internet was making humans more shallow thinkers. The premise is that Internet activity is inherently full of distractions and interruptions, and this does not allow for deep, contemplative thinking. The article then goes into an explanation that people who appear in life to multitask are merely people drawn to constant distraction, and that doing this too much damages the brain's ability to focus.

What's strange is that I, even with the discomfort I have regarding multitasking, frequently find myself attempting to do multiple things at the same time. This happens more now than it used to, and it id definitely enabled through technology that was not available to me earlier in life. I actually find myself rationalizing that I am saving time and reducing stress, though I may be doing the opposite. There are some times when multitasking is useful, but if I am honest with myself I will admit that those instances usually occur when one of the tasks I am performing is truly meaningless. So, if I get more accomplished because I types some emails while dialed into a meeting, that is only because my attention was never really needed in the meeting in the first place.

While many people believe that multitasking improves efficiency because you are accomplishing multiple things at once, multiple studies indicate that multitasking has a negative rather than positive effect on work. As an example, researchers at Stanford found that multitaskers were no better at doing things than anyone else, but they were simply more easily distracted than the rest of the population. They may appear to be doing five things at once, but this is just because those are tasks that are started rather than those that are completed. One of the study's authors went so far as to say, "We kept looking for what [multitaskers] are better at, and we didn't find it."

This all is reinforced by what I was taught in a project management class I took last year. The person teaching that class emphasized that one of a project manager's responsibilities is to help structure project workers' responsibilities in a way that reduces multitasking because of the negative effect that multitasking has on work quality and speed. Expecting constant updates on five concurrent tasks typically results in less productivity than structuring the work to be done sequentially to allow the project member time to focus.

Something that was addressed in a class I took on managing people was that people whose personality makes them want to flit from project to project have been shown to perform better when they are forced into a structure that reduces that behavior. In short, forcing multitaskers to not multitask as much makes them accomplish more. This was noteworthy because the person who taught the class and made that assertion admitted to being one of those people who liked to move from task to task to task.

So, if you happen to be wandering by a Starbucks and see someone sipping a coffee, talking on the phone, typing an instant message, reading a book, tapping a foot to some music, and shopping online at the same time, rest assured that he or she is not doing any of it well. If you are that person, you probably haven't gotten this far down in the post to notice anyway.