Multitasking: The Art of Messing Up Several Things at Once

The millennial generation is a generation of multitaskers. Or at least they think they are. We are tweeting while we are working. We are instagramming while we are creating a design sample for client. We are listening to songs when we are writing a blog post!

Now for many of you this might come across as not something you’d categorize as multitasking. As a matter of fact, while writing this post I had this discussion with one of my team members who was adamant that listening to songs and writing at the same time cannot be considered as multitasking.

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He really had a long story to tell, about this book he read in which the author told about the conscious mind, quick thinking and slow thinking part of our brain. We’ll not get into the details of that. That’s an altogether concept, which we might talk about in one of my future posts. But by the end of it all, we had a healthy argument and at the end we both were a bit more aware about the concept of multitasking.

Without drifting too much from the topic, I’d like to get back from where we started - MULTITASKING!

Multitasking According to Science

The pure definition of multitasking goes something like this - the act of dealing with more than one task at a time. This act could be physical or mental or both. And if scientific studies are to be believed then trying to do two things at once is usually a recipe for doing both badly.

The simple logic behind multitasking not working for humans is that human brain cannot focus on more than one tasks at the same time. But if you want to get into the longer discussion, I have tried to cover some of the most important points here.

Multitasking Is not MULTITASKING

According to the author of Emotional First Aid: Practical Strategies for Treating Failure, Rejection, Guilt and Other Everyday Psychological Injuries, Guy Winch,”When it comes to attention and productivity, our brains have a finite amount. It’s like a pie chart, and whatever we’re working on is going to take up the majority of that pie. There’s not a lot left over for other things, with the exception of automatic behaviors like walking or chewing gum.”

Guy, who is also a Ph. D. further adds,”Moving back and forth between several tasks actually wastes productivity. Your attention is expended on the act of switching gears—plus, you never get fully “in the zone” for either activity.”

According to these facts, it won’t be wrong to say that when we are multitasking, we are actually switching between tasks and nothing else.

Multitasking feels good, but it’s actually bad

It feels great when we are working on many tasks at the same time. But studies show that reality is actually otherwise. When we are working on more than one task at one time, it is actually bad for our productivity.

Here’s the science behind it -

‘When we multi-task, it actually makes our brain stressed. It triggers the release of stress-hormone Cortisol, which is shown to adversely affect the mental capacity of the person. In fact, according to one of the recent researches even having the opportunity to multi-task is shown to lower our ability to effectively manage tasks, solve problems - lowering our IQ points by up to 10.’

So it is evident that multitasking is actually bad for us. 

Multitasking makes you less efficient and more prone to mistakes

The biggest reason why we multitask is because we want to save time. But studies show exactly the opposite. One of the studies carried out with cab drivers in Utah a few years back showed that talking on the cell phone while driving actually made them reach their destination in more time than usual. There have been plenty of other studies related to the same topic, which have shown the similar results.

In one of the other studies focusing on the relationship between multitasking and productivity, it was found that multitasking leads to an almost 40% decrease in productivity.

So the next time you think of taking over more than one or two tasks at the same time, be sure to track where your productivity is going!

Multitasking is dangerous for your creativity and health

Yes, it is!

Multitasking stresses you out. As mentioned above, multitasking causes the brain to release Cortisol - the stress hormone. And we all know how bad stress is for the health of a person. At the same time, multitasking also brings along a number of other unwanted issues. The first one of them being a decrease in creativity.

According to one of the studies carried out at the University of Illinois, Chicago,” Multitasking requires a lot of temporary brain storage which can be termed as working memory in layman’s terms. When working memory is used up during multitasking, it leaves us with lowered ability to think creatively.”

Apart from these some of the other common health issues related to multi tasking include overeating, decreased learning ability, loss of focus and more.

These facts say quite a lot. This is not to say that multitasking was something uncommon during the past. It was, it is and it is going to be something that we all have to deal with forever.

It is something that’s unavoidable. My motive behind writing this post is just to make you aware that wherever possible try to get away from the habit of multitasking. I know there are times when you simply cannot do without taking on more than one thing at a time.

But if you want to give your best towards something, and want to succeed for sure at it, then staying away from the habit of multitasking is something that you must practice!

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Vartika Kashyap is a seasoned marketing professional who is an expert in digital marketing and entrepreneurship. She’s been featured among LinkedIn’s Top Voices for the year 2016. She currently runs the marketing team at ProofHub — a project management software for teams of all sizes. Connect with Vartika on LinkedIn, Medium and Twitter.

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