Core 2Duo

In case you missed the first part, it's here.

This is pretty much still spontaneous writing, so there are a lot of things that end up being ruled out of the published version. Any light reading going on for more than 7 minutes might be to boring to even click on the post. So, here's the part 2 of previous week's article.

The Boring multitasking

If anything, multitask should not be essentially boring. Brain is at its peak, trying to keep up with the demands., pre-frontal cortex taking the pieces of information that we deem relevant, senses intentionally activated to capture queues here and there, cortisol and adrenaline flowing every single second, and the motor system trying not to make a mess. No, it's not boring... mostly.

I hope I was clear enough in establishing the cons of staying in survival mode, wherein multitasking is one of the core pieces. So let's talk about one additional con and mainly, about the pros of training the divided attention and the exercise of such skill.

First, the boring side of multitasking. One thing that happens is that, eventually, all the conscious fun is eroded from the activity which is multitasked (This happens at the time of mastery), and empty shells of checked tasks is all that remains. A lack of mindful processing of the emotions turns our conscious system into a machine that ingests data and outputs reactions and responses, while "burning" calories. Is it wrong? Not really, but one of the perks of being human is the feature of having systems to experience the universe, rather than only processing it.

Now, this may seem (and it is) philosophical, rather than psychological, but if we become unable to choose what activities to enjoy and what activities to process blindly, that agency discussed in my first post (The ultimate goal of the mindful monkey) will be undermined and more and more things will be literally out of our conscious reach to either enjoy, control, improve or change. Instinct will take over the motor system piece by piece.

Antidote: Choose carefully what to multitask. If your BIG WHY in life are relationships, multitasking dinner time may not be a good idea. Make a list, prioritize, carefully select what tasks are worth experiencing, and exercise intention and mindfulness when performing those. All the others, are good candidates to multitask

The shiny multitasking

We're not in survival mode. Hopefully...

But the system created around us is designed upon the growth process, which is a highly stressing environment. Growing is not an easy task in biology, because it demands extra resources, extra work and extra production. Whether your a baker or a Data Engineer, a farmer or a pharmacist, if you're in any business and are young enough, most likely you have some sort of growing mindset. The catch of it, growth looks a lot like survival.

This means that when it comes to business, there will be times where you want multitasking to shine, especially when your goal includes anything beyond numb entropy and stagnation. In those moments this path will include a series of explosive moments of action, reaction and execution, all of them which will be better performed if the system has engaged the diverted attention (In the productive manner).

Feeling stuck is actually one of the symptoms that an injection of multitask may help to solve. Any good cook, a musician or a fairly good athlete will probably agree that while performing in challenging conditions, you don't have time to easily complete one activity before commencing another. You will have to overload your working memory, saturate your motor system, executing disparate tasks with each hemisphere of your limbs and ultimately, allowing your attention to switch rapidly from one task to a completely different one.

And this IS the best course of action.

The main reason for that statement is that in life, when you choose to achieve something and engage both your desire and motivation, personal experience is often subordinated to the outcome. If you are actually competing, enjoying the game is not always as important as the gold medal. Sometimes you simply want to win, even if it means simply overcoming yourself, breaking your personal record, and that is ok. Multitask is the Super Mario star that you want to pick in such times.

Distraction and multitasking

To this, the biggest risk is staying within the safe zone, the zone itself. That means, that you can still be in charge of what activities you will multitask, but even more critical to be effective in multitasking, not to become distracted. Surprisingly, being good at multitask begins with being good in focusing. Someone who cannot actually focus on a single task, is prone to be distracted by the shiny new object and will erroneously believe that is successful at multitasking, while in fact is just a serial procrastinator.

Where do we draw the line? Attention, quantity and outcome.

All of them will vary from person to person, from stage to stage, and the best way to measure them is the outcome itself of the activities that are being multitasked. Multitask is such a difficult skill to master, because it is not about replacing a good end product for several mediocre ones, but to excel in efficiency by using a moderate extra amount of energy and resources to perform with top quality results in all the simultaneous tasks (aka, you don't cut yourself nor burn the food every time you cook)

Assess attention: If you are conscious and can actually describe the tasks that you are multitasking while doing it, then your attention is in the right place and the right systems are engaged

In regards to attention, distraction happens when you don't remember or are not conscious of some of the activities that are happening, thus leaving work half-done or poorly finished.

Assess quantity: Multitasking implies that you are conscious about how much is too much. Depending on the way your working memory is built-in and the efficiency of the neural connections that have been enhanced throughout your life, you will be able to handle more or less tasks, usually less than a handful

If you can notice when you cannot add another activity to the ones you are already multitasking, congratulations! You are in the right path

Assess outcome: In line with the previous two items, effectiveness in multitasking will come from tangible end results that are of top quality in a consistent manner

Thus, if most of the times you multitask, either you cannot show consistent end results to the activities or such results lack the required quality, you may take back one step or two until achieving mastery. Other than that, you're simply burning out ineffectively

The upward spiral of multitasking

Since multitasking enables change, motion and growth, it is a likely scenario that becoming better at such will transit into environments where it is needed to keep growing and performing. Hence, it is a skill to be developed constantly, both in magnitude and depth but also, a tool to be managed with agency. You should control when, how and why to multitask instead of being a victim of it. This ends inevitably in the need of training both abilities in parallel. The skill to deeply focus in a single task, and the ability to perform in several activities simultaneously. How to train them? That's a different future series, but if you want to chat a little bit about those methods to train them, leave a comment or ping me DM to talk about it.