Multitasking

10.17.00am GMT Thu 31st Jan 2008

I can spend whole days multitasking and getting nothing done. I end up stressed and demotivated from having done nothing.

Switching from the phone - to instant messaging - to email - to a conference call - to a meeting - to a conversation in the corridor - to a telnet session ... starting far more things than I finish, and forgetting about most of them.

The day will go far more productively if the instant messaging client crashes and takes out a dozen things that were in flight.

Well structured tasks are best done in serial.

Problems that I need to figure out don't get done faster by concentrating on them. Much better to go and do something else and come back, when the progress reaches a natural break.

But I don't call that multitasking. I call that running out of steam and going to do something else. Your subconscious is much better at complex decision making; balancing up a lot of information. Thus the advise to 'sleep on it' when making an important decision.

The author of the article that sparked this revelation reports how he picked the least functional phone he could find - after the last whizz bang one damn near killed him.

I don't have a phone that takes photos, plays music, fetches my email, and runs an IM client. Its bad enough that it does texting as well as handling calls. The only other thing it does is spring into pieces if I drop it, and if the battery falls out, forget that I want the alarm to go off every morning.

Reacting to this article, slashdot posters discussed the fallacy of multitasking at length. A number of years ago, a post referred to the 'tear down' cost of switching tasks. Unlike a computer, the human brain can't suspend processing on something and pick up exactly where it left off. It takes time to switch tasks; its costly.

The scary thing is that it probably changes our brain chemistry. You become addicted to the hormones whizzing around your brain, and get jittery and can't concentrate on a single thing. I know I can't. I'm writing another posting at the same time as this, exchanging messages on facebook with a friend, checking RSS feeds for anything new ..

Related Links:

The Atlantic.com

slashdot