by Helen Krag
Picture the scene. It’s 9.15am and you are 30 minutes into writing that complex report you need to finish by lunchtime. There are three other things you absolutely must complete this morning, one of which is to talk to your boss, who is travelling. Your phone rings, and the display indicates an international call. What do you do next?
In a work environment these days it is rare to have only one task to complete at any one time. Most of us are juggling a mind-boggling variety of thoughts, ideas and ‘to-dos’. The technology available to us lures us into juggling more and more balls.
What is Multitasking?
The term ‘multitasking’ appears to have been coined to describe the way computers process more than one task or programme simultaneously. Humans take it on as a mantra for getting stuff done – women wear it as a badge of honour, whilst men lag behind with a reputation for being generally less adept at multitasking.
Our Brain and Multitasking
There is substantial literature available on how the brain handles multitasking – and in summary, it doesn’t. So whilst it may seem that we are writing an email, listening to music, speaking on the telephone and drinking a cup of coffee at the same time, we are in fact rapidly toggling between tasks rather than simultaneously processing. Which prompts the question, do we really multitask at all?
My neighbour is a light aircraft pilot. He has a remarkable ability to maintain the correct height and speed; navigate the appropriate direction; communicate with air traffic control in a seemingly foreign language; and comfortably avoid two head-on microlights that appear out of nowhere. Is he multitasking, or merely (ahem) flying an aircraft?
When we take on more than one activity at a time, we’re constantly ordering them and prioritising. This can be exhilarating – we get a buzz from the variety, and from the knowledge that we are tackling a large number of tasks. It feels efficient when we can tick 3 or 4 things off our ‘to-do’ list in quick succession.
There are also less helpful consequences, however, characterised by the capacity of our brain:
- The number of chunks of information we can remember accurately at any one time, with no memory degradation, is one. Memory degrades when we hold more than one idea at a time.
- When we try and perform two or more related tasks (at the same time, or alternating between), errors increase and it takes longer. These effects have been shown in studies to be marked.
Clearly these have an impact, particularly on our ability to manage complex activities. So whilst we find it relatively easy to walk down the street and eat an icecream (both of which are highly practiced actions with which we are very familiar), if we find ourselves lost on the street, we may need to pause from eating to decide what to do next.
What Can be Done?
Here are some suggestions to improve productivity across a series of tasks. They might seem obvious, so consider what happens when you make a conscious effort to implement them in your place of work:
- Focus on one complex task at a time. This may mean switching off telephone and email for the duration of the task.
- When you want to tackle more than one task at a time, combine a complex one with something familiar that you already have a practiced process for.
- Allow your brain rest and recovery time to consolidate thoughts and memories.
So, given all of that, and returning to our question from earlier, what’s it to be? Crack on with the proposal, or pick up the ’phone?
I am thankful for the following sources:
- Article: The Multitasking Generation, TIME.com, March 19 2006
- ‘Your Brain at Work’, David Rock, published by HarperCollins.
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