Multitasking, Productivity, Burnout

The Controversy of Multitasking

It’s not a matter of right or wrong, but how we can deal with it when it has to

To be honest, I ever claim myself as a multitasker and poorly I’m being proud of it. Besides, my cultural environment shaped me to believe a woman naturally has a natural skill to do more than one thing only at the same time. As research developed so far, I find the interesting issue because they said multitasking is a myth and the fact is we are never a multitasker instead, switching between other tasks at lightning speed. Though the research from a legit and trusted resource, still needs more time for me to finally accept the fact that multitasking is nonsense.

Unfortunately, even after knowing the fact about this issue, still not easy for me to absolutely do monotask in my life. Whether my time management skill is still bad, or there are responsibilities and workloads that somehow keep me from doing more than one thing at a time. But, I found the most crucial thing why this happened, is because so many distractions that I can not control and always appear every time I try to be focused.

Random facts about Multitasking

In fact, multitasking isn’t a myth. They exist in a real-life but just in a small number of all populations in the world. Only about two percent actually have multitasking skills. It means they can do more than one thing at the same time with the same quality of focus for each task. Some of us probably ever think we’re part of two percent of that special group, but either you don’t really feel you’re an extraordinary genius, the fact we just only switch from one task to another one with a short span of time. In a transition point between tasks, your brain needs time to adapt and then finally reach the state of flow point. This position is the point where your brain recognizes well what you’re really doing and gets the sense of the action nicely. It takes around 15 minutes to actually reach this point, then your focus is enough to do it with good quality, not just do it. Less than that, perhaps you just do it without really caring about the output. That’s why switching task slow down your work because it takes your brain time to reach its state of flow many times before finally refocusing.

When is the right time for tasks to be switched, and when are they not

As I mention above, many reasons make doing monotask every time is almost impossible for us. Many unpredictable distractions need our priority soon. So many things to take care of in our life make doing monotask seem less effective than it should be. Because it can’t be completely detached from one juggling task to another, some points below can you consider running at the same time.

1. Combine a low percentage of focus activity

We often work while accompanied by music or instrument. We listen to the instrument or even we can catch to sing the song along with work. But here, there is still one that you choose to focus more on that is work. However, you listen to music and instrument not because you want to hear them but more to stimulate your focus so you won’t feel bored and sleepy. Even so, there are still particular areas when we need to focus without music or at least just choose to hear an instrument because the lyric might be distracting too.

2. Mix human senses type that will work

Have you ever done your homework while listening to the radio or podcast? Or maybe you bring your phone when you defecate and do it while watching a movie or YouTube? Actually, when you did it, you used different types of senses that do not collide with each other. E.g you do wash dishes and listen to podcasts at the same time. You can finish doing the dishes while still capturing what’s being said on the podcast. This is because the senses you use are different, you use your hands when washing dishes while you use your ear and brain to capture podcast content. But you won’t be able to listen to podcasts while listening to music at the same time. Even if you do, there will still be one that you focus on more.

3. Integrate the conscious and unconscious activity

Some of you call a friend while driving. Actually, Hearing is also needed when driving, such as listening to the sound of horns, sirens, etc. But some of you can do both well. I think it’s because one of your activities has been recorded in your subconscious mind. It would be different when you try to drive in the first place. Not even talking on the phone, even if you are just focused on driving, you may still feel afraid and not confident. the more often you do it, you unconsciously become more proficient that you can even do it without having to put such a high concentration on it because it’s all memorized in your subconscious. This happened when I saw the cooking demo and they were still able to cook while being interviewed even though the time given was quite limited. So, I think integrating conscious and unconscious things is a good combination to get along together.

4. Low and high priority rules

Probably you joining meet whether online or offline and you still have time to reply to emails and some messages. I don’t this is a big deal especially if the emails and messages that come in are urgent to be replied to. But, of course, it depends on the type of meeting, sometimes during big meetings, our team can still capture the big conclusions and it doesn’t really need attention to detail so we can still get along with the others. The thing is to mix low and high priority together so that although the focus should be divided, it doesn’t affect so much or so lower your performance.

5. Merge Similar section

Because switching tasks makes our brain need more time to readapt again so, better we merge some similar or correlated tasks if we should do so. I.g we can build a pitch deck while preparing marketing tools for the same program. Or you can also write while collecting a list of interesting topics. The point is to make similar tasks be done at the same time so that our brains can save more energy during adaptation time and also our focus between one task and another does not drop drastically after the task switch.

Bottom Line

Though above I write down some conditions when you can be a switchtasker (if this word even exists) doesn’t mean I really recommend you to do so. It is much better if you can reduce the switching task, besides making your work more done, it is also healthier for your brain and mental health. That way just as an alternative when you have no choice and somehow should do it. One more important thing, multitasking has nothing to do with gender. It’s just that the unequal roles require that certain genders must be able to multi-task better.

Shout out to Desiree Peralta. Such nice info about How to Become Powerful Human

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