Why Multitasking is Bad

It’s easy to admire multitasking. It’s understandable. After all, having the ability to do multiple tasks at once sounds like a dream.

Not only does it save time but also gives time to do other tasks since two tasks were done in parallel but this is not true.

Multitasking means that we are poorly doing two tasks instead of one right simply because we cannot humanely concentrate or focus on more than one task effectively.

For example, it might be trying to do your work while watching a movie.

Our brain simply cannot multitask deep work. While we think so, we aren’t doing multiple tasks at once. We are simply changing the task quickly.

The goal is to be effective not efficient.

It also means that multitasking can affect not only our ability to focus but its quality as well.

Research has shown that switching tasks isn’t productive.

Everytime we switch with a different task, there is a cost associated with it which accumulates and slows down our productivity.

It disturbs the quality of our attention on cognitive tasks. By constantly switching our tasks, it may increase distractibility and fickleness.

As we know, if you’re generally far more fickle or distracted than usual, your chances of quitting your task or procrastinating is far higher.

Research has also shown us that multitasking does negatively affect our results.

According to this paper, the students who were multitasking were found to be showing worse results in GPA compared to their peers.

While this is true, we can acknowledge that there is a difference between having an activity (not a task) in the background whilst doing another task.

An activity is something light that can easily put in our back of minds while a task obviously requires us having almost two parallel minds.

This may mean listening to classical music while studying or listening to a podcast while driving.

It either means if the task itself isn’t mentally draining, another activity can be done without much diminishment or the activity can enrich our task itself.

For example, having noise cancelling headphones with peaceful background music might be very useful for someone who lives in a neighbourhood with often construction which leads to distracting noises.

Though this does not mean one should play video games while watching TV in the background.

If it’s truly relevant to the task, do so but there is no good done if you engage in our dystopian dopamine cycles parallely.

A final caveat. While multitasking is generally bad, some jobs require constant task switching which is highly relevant to their job rather than focusing on a single task at a time.

Tips to quit multitasking

• Use the pomodoro timer: either do the work in chunks of 25-5 (25 minutes work + 5 minutes break) or 50-10 (50 minutes work + 10 minutes break) and take a break when you reach 4 sessions of 25-5 or 2 sessions of 50-10.

• Limit distractions: It is far easier for the problem to not exist than for it to exist.

  Find out what’s the most distracting and remove it in your viewable surroundings. It may be your phone or install extensions to block websites or apps on your laptop.

• Mindfulness: Try adding meditation in your life which helps you snap back to your task rather than looping inside the dopamine trap.