365QOD- Day1255

Multitasking is a Myth

“Can you walk and chew gum?”- a smart-alecky question

Jacqueline Whitmore’s fifth observation is: Single Task.

It is my belief that multitasking is a myth.  The human brain is designed to switch between tasks instead of parallel task completion. 

What this means is that we can not do multiple things effectively and must tackle one task at a time.  There is no such thing as multi-anything.  Yes, you can walk and chew gum.  Those two tasks are simple enough.  But when trying to do two difficult things like driving and texting you veer off the road.

What ends up happening when we do attempt to do multiple things is that the brain has to expand energy to remember where we were as it switches between tasks.  But what occurs is a delay.  The brain has to store the information first- this is a delay.  Then it has to start the new tast by retrieving where we were before- this is delay.  So we introduce delay just to get back to where we were.

A better approach is to force ourselves to focus on doing the one thing in front of us until we are done and then move on to the next task.  In the long run this strategy will improve our effectiveness and rate of completion.

Today’s question is:

“How do you force yourself to single task?”