{"id":789,"date":"2012-09-11T06:11:14","date_gmt":"2012-09-11T10:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/?p=789"},"modified":"2012-09-10T07:07:30","modified_gmt":"2012-09-10T11:07:30","slug":"multi-tasking-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/2012\/09\/11\/multi-tasking-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Multitasking – Not!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1740, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at\u00a0 once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time<\/strong>.<\/em>“<\/p>\n

Repeatedly, science has shown that multitasking does not save time, in fact it can make you stupid!\u00a0 A Wall Street Journal article from 2003 titled the Pitfalls of Doing Too Much at Once<\/a> to an August INC magazine article titled Multitasking is Making You Stupid<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We would all agree, that texting while driving is a big no-no.\u00a0 But what about reading while riding the exercise bike?\u00a0 Or listening to music or the radio while driving?\u00a0 Or cooking dinner with a baby on your hip?\u00a0 Here is where I draw the line on what is OK multitasking and what is not.\u00a0 Our brains can only preform one higher level task at a time.\u00a0 The higher level tasks or functions require attention and focus, the lower level tasks are routine and often repetitive.\u00a0 When we try to preform two higher level tasks it is like trying to watch two different tennis matches at the same time – you are going to miss something.\u00a0 This is also why texting and driving is so deadly – two higher level tasks that cannot<\/strong> co-exist.<\/p>\n

The lower level tasks that can happened in the background might include listening to the radio or music while working.\u00a0 Or watching the television while knitting.\u00a0 Or day dreaming while walking the dog.\u00a0 The lower level task is operating in the background.\u00a0 Tasks like mowing the lawn, just seem to go better with a little music and watching the TV while knitting might be fine for an experienced knitter.\u00a0 The focus is on the lawn, or the knitting, or the dog and the lower level activity is the music, the TV or the day dream.\u00a0 Foreground vs. background.<\/p>\n

What doesn’t seem to work, is trying to complete two goals at the same time.\u00a0 This is where focus needs to happen.\u00a0 When you shift from one goal to the other you have created more chance for error and mistakes.\u00a0 If you cook or watch a cook, you may think they are multitasking – having put a few large meals together in my time, I have come to believe that a really great chef has an internal clock that knows – “the potatoes have to mashed at 6PM” and the dessert has to be served at 7PM”.\u00a0 This is a prefect example in my world of a Goal – “Prepare and Serve a meal for my family<\/strong><\/em>” that has a series of tasks<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0 To this day, if I’m serving a new meal or have new guests, I’ll make a timeline that gives me the breakdown of when the different parts of the whole meal need starting and finishing.\u00a0 If it doesn’t get on the list, it usually doesn’t make it to the table, which explains the untouched salsa and chips I discovered in the back of the ‘frig last week. Again, the goal is the meal which has a multitude of tasks.\u00a0 Many of us in the kitchen have music, radio or conversations going – that is the background. <\/p>\n

Multitasking is really switching from goal to goal and in the end, you will get less done and often not be happy with the results.\u00a0 Have a good week staying focused and productive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 1740, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at\u00a0 once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.“ Repeatedly, science has shown that multitasking does not save […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":791,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions\/791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.changinglanes.biz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}