Multitasking: Is it good and can you master it?

Gomila Shashiprabath
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Think for a moment about how many mistakes you make in a day. From the moment you wake up until you lay your head on the pillow at night, you’re dealing with a lot, from helping the kids with their homework to doing your office work at home, and taking and responding to emails while talking. Colleagues on your phone etc. You are multitasking 24/7.

If you resonate with what was mentioned in the previous paragraph, then you will be interested in the advice presented in this article.

The purpose of this article is to help you master the art of multitasking by breaking things down so you can come up with a workable solution. Buckle up to get answers to your queries and make your life simple and fun.

What is multitasking?

In a human context, multitasking refers to performing many activities simultaneously, such as editing a document or answering an e-mail while participating in a teleconference.

When our brains are constantly jumping gears we are less efficient and prone to making mistakes. According to psychologists who study what happens to cognition, when people try to perform more than one activity at once, the mind and brain aren’t meant for heavy-duty multitasking.

Psychologists compare work to dancing or air traffic control, stressing that stress can lead to disaster in these and other activities.



Can you multitask?


The real question one should ask is whether multitasking is possible.

It really narrows down to what people see and what it really is. People think they can do many things at once. However, it is true that they simply move from one job to another.

When is multitasking impossible?


Multitasking skills are based on a myth, according to cognitive neuroscientists and psychologists around the world.

Several types of research have been conducted to see how multitasking affects our brains. A study to investigate whether multitasking while driving is good or bad concluded that performance basically decreases when there is a resource conflict.

Another study looked at the performance of young versus older adults when multitasking while driving, and concluded that older people’s performance is more impaired than that of younger people and that the ability to multitask declines with age.



When is multitasking possible?


According to studies, the only time you can multitask is when you are doing two things, one of which does not require your attention or mental energy, for example jogging while listening to music.

According to research, mildly distracting activities such as listening to the radio can help improve driving performance by providing a less distracting alternative. It concludes that you can only multitask when neither of the two things requires your attention or mental energy. As with driving, listening to music does not require extra effort or mental energy and can multitask (driving and listening to music).

Is multitasking a good thing?


The obvious answer is no when you’re trying to do too many things at once, and these things require your mental energy. Multitasking negatively affects our productivity. It’s a bad habit that has long-term, harmful effects on your health, well-being, and productivity:

Multitasking can harm health

Multitasking has a negative impact on health as it leads to depression and social anxiety. Brain gray matter, particularly in regions involved in cognitive control and regulation of motivation and emotion, was shown to be reduced during frequent media multitasking.

These people are more likely to experience mental health problems such as depression.

Also, persistent media multiplexes have poor working and long-term memory, so their ability to retain information over a period of time is also limited.

Multitasking has a big impact on your relationships


In addition to problems like depression and anxiety, people who constantly multitask put their relationships at risk.

Sometimes the tendency to multitask hurts the relationship and makes the partner feel neglected. Imagine discussing something with your partner while he or she is constantly checking social media or email on the cell phone. How does that make you feel? This so-called, technology or the intervention of technology leads to a decrease in relationship satisfaction

Multitasking makes you unproductive


Researchers investigated whether multitasking increases our productivity and effectiveness. The findings showed that multitasking makes people less productive, which is the exact opposite of what many multitaskers believe.

Every time we move from one task to another there is a cognitive cost that reduces our productivity.

Multitasking means that you constantly switch your attention between different tasks. This may seem like the ultimate level of focus, but multitasking is no different from distraction—worse, it’s self-imposed.

We’d like to believe that multiple activities can be handled simultaneously, but that comes at the cost of reduced quality and attention paid to each task. As a result, you are less productive than someone who focuses on one task at a time.



Multitasking affects your performance

Studies show that performance almost always suffers. When our brains constantly shift gears to jump between tasks especially when those tasks are complex and require our active attention—we become less efficient and more prone to making mistakes.

This may not be as obvious or impactful when we do easy and mundane things like walking while listening to music or doing laundry while watching TV. As the stakes increase and the activities become more difficult, however, trying to multitask can have a negative impact on our lives – and can be dangerous.

When we do so-called multitasking, our attention is divided. It makes it more difficult for us to focus completely on one item.

When we switch tasks, we lose time and energy. A study found that when switching between different tasks, the time wasted depends on various factors and can vary from seconds to hours.


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