“The Myth of Multitasking ” Leaders Journal | Episode 61 | Transcript Hi, I’m Martin Ramsay, Chief Learning and Technology Architect for Leaders Ought To Know. How do you feel about multi-tasking? You know what I mean - the ability to focus on more than one thing at a time. For example, you might be able to simultaneously carry on a phone conversation with a friend, help your child with his homework and watch TV. Very efficient, right? Or, at work, you might be able to attend a meeting, make some adjustments to a PowerPoint presentation you have to give tomorrow, and keep an eye on the emails that are coming in -- all at the same time. The idea of multi-tasking is that it is very efficient. You can get a lot of things done by overlapping them. When I was younger, I prided myself on being a good multi-tasker. I was impressed with myself and my ability to do several things at once. Perhaps you feel that way, too. The thing is, now that I’m a little older - and, I hope, just a little bit wiser - I wonder if I wasn’t being just a bit naive. Let me go ahead and make a controversial statement. I’m not sure that we really can multitask at all. We just fool ourselves into thinking that we can. I’m a tech guy, so perhaps what I’m about to say is influenced by my chosen profession, but see if you agree with me. When it comes to multitasking, the human brain is not unlike a computer. You see, a computer can only perform one instruction at a time, even though it performs each one very quickly.
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And if a computer needs to switch major tasks, it does what computer scientists call a core exchange. The program the central processor was working on has to be parked off to the side so that the new program can be loaded into the active memory. Sometimes these programs that are parked off to the side get stacked up, which really begins to bog things down. Unless we’re talking about some very leading edge computer architectures, a big stack in the computer’s memory really makes things inefficient. You might think a computer is working on more than one thing at once, but it really isn’t. It is just trying to work on one thing at a time as quickly as it can. And any time it has to switch tasks, there is a price to pay in terms of efficiency. Even though we humans can do many things a computer cannot, we are similar to a computer in that we can really only focus on one thing at a time. We may think we’re multi-tasking, but we’re really switching back and forth -- a lot. You may be talking on the phone to a friend and helping your child with algebra homework, but I’ll bet your friend hears these long pauses while you point out something to your child. Or the phone conversation gets serious and you overlook an opportunity to really help your child learn a math skill. Or you’ll be distracted by something good on TV and neglect both of them. And that’s the real problem with multi-tasking. Every time you switch from one task to another, there is a price to pay in terms of moving the memories and thoughts about one task off to the side and bringing in another one. The more you do this, the higher the price. There comes a point at which you’re not doing any of the tasks well. In my opinion, multitasking is actually less efficient because of all this brain switching that we have to do.
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For example, I have a bad habit of leaving my email open while I work on a complex project. And then some dumb email comes in, my computer goes “ding” and I find my brain, almost involuntarily, losing what I’ve been working on and switching onto that new email. I would be so much better off if I focused on one thing, get to a natural break, and then switched to the next thing -- like checking email. Now I will readily admit to you that there are times - say when you’re in a meeting - where there are big gaps of time between when your brain is really needed. We’re tempted to work on something else. May I submit to you that the solution lies not in multitasking, but in fixing what is wrong with the meeting? But that is a subject for another day. For now, I’d like you to consider what I call the myth of multitasking. Multitasking doesn’t actually exist. What exists is a series of tasks, done one at a time, with lots of switching back and forth that can really wear down your efficiency. Focusing on one thing at a time is much more efficient than the myth of multitasking. So I’d like to suggest that you arrange your day, to the extent that you can, so that you multitask less and focus more. I’d be glad to hear from you if you agree or disagree with my take on multitasking. And I’ll look forward to the next time we’re together where I’d like to talk about other ways to effectively manage our time.
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