Comments on: Is Multitasking Wasting Our Time?

By: Michael S.

Michael S. — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:10:57 +0000

i. Merey is exactly right. spayced, your “example” is not true multitasking at all.

Also, it’s not clear what it’s an example of.

I think you missed the point.

By: susan

susan — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:30:37 +0000

I agree that multitasking does expand the time of tasks if each task was happening in a linear fashion. However since tasks often have peak and valley times, multitasking encourages people to fill the “wait” time with other tasks needing attention.

By: i. Merey

i. Merey — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:38:21 +0000

To spayced–

Yes, I agree that it would be silly to memorize this article
so that you can then make a comment with your full attention in
this tab.

But I would argue that is not multitasking. You are using
this article in another tab
to make a comment (which is your task). If you
were reading something totally unrelated in another tab, now that
would be a different story.

By: Eric Hamm

Eric Hamm — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 22:17:15 +0000

I couldn’t agree more! Multitasking is a myth in and of itself.

Thanks for pointing out that study. I knew the logic was there, but it helps to have factual references like that. Eric

By: spayced

spayced — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:37:30 +0000

You can’t say multitasking is a waste based on this research. The article admits that they multitask better with familiar tasks. The reason is multitasking various activities is something that you learn to do. Nobody can do it well on the first try. It’s also something that someone needs to do, you can’t just avoid it because you decide it’s not efficient. For example, I have another tab open with the longer version of the article that I’m checking while I also write this comment. Memorizing the article would be WAY less efficient than multitasking to accomplish this.

By: David

David — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 07:24:37 +0000

I agree with this article. I found that in my work, having emails open, a calendar, typing a letter, or working on spreadsheet, took me longer that I thought necessary. When I applied the power of focus in getting one task done, I did it in less time and did not have to retrain my brain into something new. It’s like being an engine, it take a while to warm up. This translates into time lost. The power of focus helps us concentrate on the task at hand help us complete the tasks in a contiguous matter with much more reliability and avoid the chance of making mistakes.