When was the last time you did at least two tasks simultaneously? Like driving and listening to the news or talking with friends and posting picture on Facebook or texting while sitting on the meeting.
Today, right?
And you are not the only person. We are all multitasking.
BUT
Is it optimal? Are you concentrated while doing this? Does it drive the best results?
According to psychology and neuroscience our brains aren't equipped for doing tasks simultaneously that do require brainpower. What brain really does is TASK-SWITCHING which means moving very quickly between tasks. But, this process is not without a cost. Every time you interrupt one task and jump to another you are paying SWITCHING COST.
Want to know how much?
Experiment
Do the test and write an answer in comments! You will only need one piece of paper, pencil and a stopwatch (on your phone).
First test
• Start stopwatch.
• Draw two horizontal lines on a piece of paper.
• On the first line, write: I am a great multitasker
• On the second line: write out the numbers 1-20 sequentially, like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
• Stop stopwatch.
How much time did it take to finish a first task? Usually it’s about 20 seconds.
Second test
• Start stopwatch
• Draw two horizontal lines
• Start filling up these lines but now write one letter on the first line and then a number on the line below, the next letter in the sentence on the upper line, and then the next number in the sequence. In other words, write the letter "I" and then the number "1", then the letter "a" and the number "2" and so on.
• Stop stopwatch
How much time did it take to finish a second task? I bet you needed more than double!
Multitasking outcome
The myth of multitasking is that you are going to be more efficient and save time. In reality, focus is what makes the difference.
Multitasking only:
- decreases your productivity
- lowers attention
- impacts short term memory,
- increases probability of making a mistake.
Keep in mind that it is not important HOW MANY THINGS you are doing at the moment. What really matters is HOW EFFICIENT you are.
If you want to increase your productivity you have to focus and single-task.
RESTEEM this article in order to find out how much we are paying on average every time we do the task switching.