Are you able to do multitasking?
Have you ever found yourself juggling multiple tasks, thinking you’re multitasking, and feeling productive because of it?
Let’s delve into the myth of multitasking and its real impact on productivity. Many of us grew up surrounded by computers, and at some point we all drew the analogy between a CPU and our brain.
But the reality is that our brain is not a multi-core CPU capable of handling several tasks at once. If anything, it behaves more like a single-core CPU — limited in how much it can genuinely process in parallel.
I’ve seen plenty of people with tens of open browser tabs, the email app, a spreadsheet, and two monitors on their desk, giving the impression of being very busy and very productive.
But it isn’t.
Publilius Syrus, the Roman philosopher, once said: “to do two things at once is to do neither.” And that’s the truth.
When you think you’re multitasking, you’re actually task-switching. Switching from one task to another has a cost — sometimes higher than the value of the task itself — because you have to hold the context in memory each time you move.
I know it’s hard to believe, so here’s a simple exercise that removes all doubt.
Take a piece of paper and a pen, and draw a horizontal line. Grab your phone or a watch to time yourself.
First, write above the line the sentence:
“What I do is not multitasking.”
And below the line, write the sequence of numbers:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 … 29
It should look something like this:
| What I do is not multitasking. |
|---|
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 … 29 |
First, time yourself writing one letter (or space) of the sentence, then one number, alternating — W, 1, h, 2, and so on — until you complete both lines.
Then reset, and do it again, but this time write the whole sentence first, and only then the whole sequence of numbers. Compare the two times.
If you’re like most people, the first version takes roughly double the time of the second. The conclusions are yours to draw.
