I remember a friend of mine telling me about her friend’s young daughter. The daughter was practicing gymnastics and she was in the middle of her routine when she ran over to her toy cell-phone to gabble in it for a few seconds. Then she ran back to finish her routine.

We women teach our daughters to handle more than one thing at once.

Yes my Mother tells me that Woman are better at Multi-tasking! http://www.istockphoto.com/file_closeup/who/clothing_types/business_wear/2366083_business_woman_multitasking_with_cellphone_and_laptop_4.php?id=2366083

So what makes woman better multi-taskers? Cheers, David

[…] Two interesting links from Merlin Mann’s 43 folders this week: NYT published an article on the problems of multitasking. Brian Kim gives his thoughts on the top 5 (+1) things that should be taught in every school. […]

Multi-tasking is great for PCs, bad for people. Like walking and chewing gum at the same time.

[…] NYT: New data on the problems of “multitasking” | 43 Folders (tags: productivity organization) […]

[…] From an article in the NY Times (via 43 Folders): “Several research reports, both recently published and not yet published, provide evidence of the limits of multitasking. The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car….When humans attempt to perform two tasks at once, execution of the first task usually leads to postponement of the second one.” […]

I am a juggler by trade. So I refuse to believe that multi-tasking can impair thought. Oops … I just dropped something in my mind. Even in juggling however, you are not actually doing anything simultaneously. Your attention is only on one juggling ball at a time, even at high numbers. I wonder if multi-tasking is more successful if the subject is good at, or becomes adept at switching their entire attention quickly.

[…] Multi-tasking is generating a lot of blog chatter lately; recent studies suggest that trying to accomplish a lot of things at once does not make us more productive, rather, actually seems to make us less efficient. (well.. er.. yeah we knew that, we just like to deny it.) And now, there is evidence from MRI’s to show that the brain isn’t equiped to focus on more than one task at a time. If forced to multi-task, there’s a neural bottleneck, and everything takes just a little bit longer. […]

[…] Merlin Mann of 43folders has linked to several resources on the myth of multitasking. […]

[…] Merlin Mann has a good post on this on his blog. […]

[…] To any former coworker who has gotten pissy with me for wanting to finish the task at hand before helping them with something stupid, I say read this. […]

Come on down to the Cardiology Department in Florida Hospital Orlando to find multitasking at its best. You may not be able to get any words in however due to the fact their receptionist has an earpiece stuck in her head. YAK, YAK, YAKITEE YAK will be all you hear from their front desk. I don’t know how this department conducts any official business with these personal conversations going on. Where I come from, this is just plain rude! How can an organization striving for national attention put up with type of behavior?

[…] 2. Slow Down, Multitaskers, and Don’t Read in Traffic: Via 43Folders. Not surprising, and pretty much what we already know: “In a recent study, a group of Microsoft workers took, on average, 15 minutes to return to serious mental tasks, like writing reports or computer code, after responding to incoming e-mail or instant messages. They strayed off to reply to other messages or browse news, sports or entertainment Web sites. […]

There is research to indicate some people do BETTER in a multi-tasking environment. Specifically, they are more productive when they ARE bothered. Practically, their most productive time is when they first begin a task, not 15 minutes into it.

There are some software companies here in Phoenix that are using this information for hiring purposes: IT support needs to be staffed with multi-distraction (sic) folks, for example. The other two “types” used are: (1) weekly or monthly repetition and (2) single-project minded. They are looking at positions based on a timing-work filter first.

Interesting stuff, mainly because in the recent weeks, many, MANY so-called “twitter” add-ons are popping up all over the internet. So, this would mean all those using twitter are actually being less productive (actually quite obvious, instead of spending time typing what you’re up to (which you’re actually not), you’d better do what you’re up to…)

[…] NYT: New data on the problems of “multitasking” Confirmation it is a myth (tags: gtd) […]

But the concept of multi-tasking is so ATTRACTIVE. I love that scene in the Royal Tenenbaums when you see young Chaz Tenenbaum taking lunch standing up at his desk.

I think people feel more important or confident when they elaborately multi-task and that a lot of it is “getting psyched for the game.”

I download audiobooks to listen to during workouts, even though Freakonomics and the elliptical machine don’t really mix, because it makes me FEEL more efficient. I used to be able to bicycle while drinking coffee and eating breakfast on my way to school. I actually keep little pink hand weights under my desk so I can lift them during conference calls (while I’m wearing my headset and on Outlook). This kind of behavior doesn’t make me any more productive but it has some strange mental effect that releases endorphins for sure.

One can not help but wonder if multitasking ultimately improves ones I.Q. by utilizing more of the brain’s capacity, as well as makeing one more alert and versatile.

Also, it could prevent the job routine from becoming boring as well as preventing repetative motion syndrome.

Perhaps there is a balance that is needed between great efficiency at one routine and overal productivity that may not be as efficient.

[…] [ 43 Folders ] —> * * * […]

I’ve actually suggested to some folkes I work with, that we block 10 hours a week on our calendars for “do not interrupt” time.

The counter argument is that there’s always high priority work going on that requires quick turn-around, and that it can’t be “scheduled”.

i may use this post as ammunition to justify a small study in our company. I think it’s the only way to beat the myth where I work.

[…] One of my biggest sources of inspiration for increased productivity comes from 43folders, a blog run by Merlin Mann. While GTD seems way over my head if I just want to make a to-do list, some of the content there is very relevant to my problem: lack of organization and productivity. Take a recent article on multitasking, for example. It basically agrees with the New York Times article that multitasking doesn’t help productivity, but instead hinders it. Merlin Mann is correct when he says that most people who think they “multi task” are just effective at splitting tasks into small, manageable amounts of time. I’d even go far enough to agree with Merlin that multitasking is a myth, because it’s simply unproductive to try and do two things at a time. […]

[…] NYT: New data on the problems of “multitasking” | 43 Folders (tags: to_read) […]

Multi-tasking, in some cases, is really just micro-tasking; breaking up what we do in tiny chunks. So we look at our Blackberry for 2 seconds while we are walking down the street and then look up to see where we are going for 2 seconds. The trouble is that I can’t “big think” in short bursts. It is that long thought process that gets us to the great ideas, or hitting the sweet spot. Agreed that multi-tasking is a myth but what does that say about the women’s superior ability to multi-task?

http://www.careerjournal.com/columnists/workfamily/20030321-workfamily.html

The loss in productivity is not only in the time lost by each task owner, but in an organization, when everyone is in multi-tasking mode, the real hits to productivity come from the delays in completion of projects with dependent tasks. I wrote about this in a previous life as a project managmement consultant… http://www.focusedperformance.com/articles/multi02.html

Despite all the evidence on the wastefulness of multi-tasking, it persists due to 1) the belief that the sooner you start something, the sooner you’ll finish it (only true when single tasking and not bouncing back and forth from effort to effort), and 2) the inability to set priorities, which in turn, is rooted in 3) the deire to avoid conflicts about priorities.

Good article, Merlin. I agree completely … multitasking is never as efficient as focusing on one task, and focusing on doing it well. Complete that task, and move on to the next. If you can work like this, you’ll crank through your Next Actions list.

I’ve written on this topic as well: Top 5 Online Apps That Ruin Your Productivity (these are apps that are just major distractions from the task at hand), and How NOT to Multi-task: Work Simpler and Saner.

I think in order to avoid multitasking, I have to eliminate all other distractions unrelated to what I’m actually doing. For example, I should’ve switched off my Wi-Fi when writing my story for Creative Writing, which is due tomorrow. Instead, I didn’t and Google reader notified me that 43f had another article. As important as this entry is, I could’ve seen the same thing later, once I finished.

Now that I realize this, I guess all that I really need is the motivation to do it. That’s where I can tell whether or not I strongly believe in what I say or read.

We’re handy!…

I noticed this morning that I’ve gotten some hits coming from 43 Folders. Since I subscribe to the 43 Folders feed, I this site hadn’t been mentioned in a blog post, so where was the link coming from? Ah,……

It’s so interesting that you would make this post. I was brainstorming a blog post this morning while driving to work. The main point was that in today’s world, given our time scaled methodologies, our projects are really suffering in the discovery phase for two reasons: 1) the time cycle for discovery has been abbreviated to the point that it’s often the first, not the best solution that gets green lighted for development and 1) The development and discovery phases are both being executed in conjunction with many other projects, phone calls, emailing, web surfing, etc. and this causes everyone in the project to direct less focus to the solution’s viability and leave us just to find functionality. We end up with working solutions, but more often than not they aren’t the “best” solutions.

I’m not usually one to dispute clearly observable scientific studies, but there are two things that those studies vastly overlook. Read on…

The first study you mentioned talked about Microsoft employees, and stated that they looked at only people over 18 for the study. What about the kids, eh? The group blog I write for consists mostly of writers under 18. I talk to them on Skype all the time, and I know based on their habits that they multitask often, and they do it very well. I’m not disputing that one task means 100% of your brain focusing on that task, but I think looking at it like using 20% of your brain split between two tasks is a huge fallacy.

Second, I don’t see based on what I read that either of the studies determined if we could be taught to multitask better. I think this goes back to the idea about kids - as they (well, I suppose at 19 I could be included as well) grow up in an increasingly connected and wired world, they have things flying at them from all different corners of life, and they have to learn to deal with that. If you’ve ever read Charles Stross’ excellent novel Accelerando, you might understand what I’m talking about as a “Manfred Macx moment” where you’ve got ten or twenty “feeds” of things constantly shooting stuff in your direction that you have to deal with like a goalie defending a net. After going through about a year of managing a huge list of RSS feeds, email, web sites, and more, and now adding things like Twitter into the mix, there is barely any way to avoid multitasking. I believe based on these kinds of hectic situations, though, that we can learn how to manage them better.

Again, I’m not disputing that it’s often better to focus all of your brainpower on one task at any given time, but I really do believe that we, especially younger people growing up in this singularity-imminent world of ours, can multitask a lot better than some scientific study says we can. There’s too much about our brains that we don’t yet understand to be able to encompass something like this in a single study.

[…] 43 Folders blog had an interesting post today. In a nutshell, they talk about how multi-tasking as a human being is mostly a myth, and even people who seem to be able to do several things at once are usually very good into breaking down their problems in smaller pieces and keep focus on them. I would call it they are good context switchers. […]