Is Multitasking that Devilous As You Label It?
Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth. -John Medina
Is Multitasking Simply the Act of Doing Multiple Tasks or There’s More?
Just like computers, people have always been multitasking in an attempt to increase productivity or in other words, to get more work done. In order to attain such a level of productivity through multitasking, often efficiency is compromised. Such is the dilemma of doing multitasking.
Imagine you have an important virtual meeting which you will be attending from home but you also need to cook food for your family and yourself simultaneously. There is a very high chance that you may miss an important detail from the meeting while also messing up the food you are preparing due to the divided attention and focus given to these two different tasks. So then, even though in terms of productivity, you finished two tasks simultaneously but the efficiency and final product are compromised. You missed important details of your meeting while the food did not satisfy your palate.
Psychologists since the early 1960s have been experimenting with the limitations and nature of human multitasking. There have been many studies surrounding different aspects of multitasking ranging from efficiency, productivity, complexity, nature, kinds of tasks etc. The researchers have come to the conclusion that there is a certain processing bottleneck that prevents the brain from working on key details of multiple tasks simultaneously. The idea that because people have limited attentional resources, they only keep the most important information and this idea refers to Bottlenecking.
Psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell once described multitasking as, “a mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously as effectively as one.”
Our cognitive ability is not flawless and limitless hence there is a higher chance of missing details and unconsciously ignoring certain steps of a task. The scale of difficulty and complexity is a huge factor determining the attention given to a task, as well as the amount of expertise the individual possesses in each task.
The brain cannot fully focus on either of the tasks because of the divided attention required by them, the factor of time also varies as a result. A simple task such as writing an article will take considerably more time while multitasking then it would if it was done without any other task simultaneously hindering your focus and attention. In a study by a psychologist, René Marois discovered that the brain exhibits a “response selection bottleneck” when someone is asked to do various tasks at once. And in doing so the brain decides on its own which activity is most important, hence requires the most time.
The fact that even though you are looking to get more work done through multitasking but it just brings you to a result that would never be 100% of either of the tasks.
But, What About the Joker Juggling the Balls in the Circus?
If you have visited the circus ever, you will get awestruck to see the joker
juggling 10 balls in the air while balancing on the unicycle. Isn’t that crazy? That’s a classical example of multitasking that started with single-tasking only or else the feat would be impossible. Here’s a little breakdown.
First, the joker learns how to balance on the unicycle
Second, the joker learns to juggle two balls in the air and leaves the cycle altogether
Then, he learns to juggle multiple balls in the air and achieves perfection
Finally, he clubs both the activities together:
Not only he juggles the balls, but does the act while balancing on the unicycle; ALL AT ONCE
What Does the Joker Teach Us About Multitasking?
Take a close look and you would notice that the joker isn’t picking up multiple, difficult tasks together. That’s out of the question and will involve exercising different parts of the body and the mind. Therefore, the joker first picks up a single task and masters that. Then, he picks the next set of tasks to achieve perfection and finally; attempts all the task at once.
It’s Not Multitasking, But Context Switching
Multitasking is messy, but not context switching. There is a big difference between both. If you observe the Joker, he isn’t into multitasking but context switching. He has mastered the art to perform multiple acts together, starting one at a time. Multitasking, on the other hand, is the act of doing tasks completely unrelated to each other. That’s why cooking for your guests and attending a meeting at the same time is a bad idea because both tasks are completely unrelated and there’s a high likelihood of spoiling both when done together.
What is Context Switching?
Multitasking can be efficiently and more fruitfully achieved through Context Switching. In computing terms, context switching is the process of storing the state of a process or thread, so that it can be restored and resume execution at a later point. That’s the technical definition of it. But in recent times, context switching has also been a talking point for human work life and how this process can be an answer to multitasking more effectively in an individual’s daily life.
Humans cannot multitask the way Computers can but that does not mean that humans cannot multitask at all. The best way to multitask is to figure out how to connect multiple tasks through your thought process and the nature of the task.
In layman terms, context switching can be defined as performing highly interconnected tasks together to achieve optimum productivity and efficiency.
For example, if you attempt to read this article while solving a difficult match problem, then there’s a higher chance that you will find yourself stuck in between the tasks. But if you are reading this article while you are working on an article of yours, you can easily switch between them without much hindrance.
Even customer support reps perform context switching all the time to achieve their multitasking objectives. For instance, a customer rep has to listen to the call attentively, jot down notes if required, search-related information to help the customer better, and indulge in effective communication; all at once to resolve the problem and impress the customer. It’s possible because the nature of the tasks isn’t scattered but connected. The brain can comfortably process the information because the “context” is the same.
But, if they have to attend to a different customer problem or listen to a colleague while handling a customer on call; that’s multitasking because the context is entirely different and the brain can no longer process the information to get the work done. With practice, one can get better but that's not recommended. The goal is always to perform a task to its last-mile rather than picking up the ones when the brain finds it hard to switch contexts.
The problem with basic multitasking is that because your attention and focus are stretched so thin in between multiple tasks, it is very difficult to learn something new even if it is right in front of you. But if you carefully formulate a plan to execute multiple tasks without them overlapping then you will gain knowledge that you could have missed.
The fragmented nature of Context Switching is deemed as problematic by many as they think it is bad for your productivity and every task you do will suffer from it. But the whole point of applying Context switching is to avoid that and is the reason why grouping your tasks in terms of their nature, keeping similar tasks together will increase your output. The nature of those tasks will always remain parallel to your thought process and you will be able to provide better results.
You cannot be hasty in switching through tasks as the duration in which you are switching tasks is stated by Professor Sophie Leroy from the University of Minnesota as “Attention Residue”. She claimed that people refuse to stop thinking about one task while moving on to another task which compromises their performance or output because of divided attention and focus. This is understandable as it is very difficult to transition the attention away from an unfinished task. Hence, task performance suffers.
The answer is in determining the nature of your tasks and the formulation of a plan to execute these tasks. Try to keep similar tasks grouped together as in that way even when you switch from one task to another, you will still be dealing with similar objectives. Therefore, by eliminating the possibility of working on two or more completely unrelated tasks and dividing focus and attention, working on two or more similar tasks will give you more comfort in your productivity as well as increase efficiency and quality.
Conclusion
There’s a constant debate about whether multitasking is healthy or not. Even when single-tasking helps us achieve more focus and improve efficiency, it’s not possible in our lives. As humans, we have to do multiple tasks to get ahead in a competitive world. Our jobs involve taking care of multiple things at once, our personal lives are full of multiple commitments, and more. That’s why the key is to choose interconnected tasks as a simpler way to multitask or more aptly, context switch. Our brain will always retaliate when we try to perform multiple things together. So, do you context switch or multitask?
