Bookmarked: Multitasking is still a lie

Multitasking is still a lie | Christopher S. Penn’s Awaken Your Superhero.

I love this:  “If you are multitasking, you are either doing work that is trivial or you’re doing a poor job.”

Try this experiment if you doubt the reality of the above statement:  Next time you’re on a date with your spouse or significant other, be sure to stay buried in your smartphone the whole time.

Okay, so that takes focus, huh?

Well, certainly, watching your favorite football team play requires far less focus.  Try watching the game while reading up on some complex instructions.  Did you comprehend the instructions?  Did you enjoy the game?  Or did you lose twice?

Realistically, multitasking can work if one of the tasks is trivial or tedious and the other more enjoyable:

• running on a treadmill and listening to music
• sorting and folding the laundry and watching a movie

Of course, one activity is primarily physical and the other primarily mental.

However, in the work world, we’re never talking about tightening lug nuts and financial analysis in the multitasking context. We’re talking about two knowledge-based tasks.