Multitasking vs Single Tasking Exercise

Do you still think that multitasking helps you get more done?

We are going to prove you wrong with this exercise 🙂

Multitasking is not faster, neither you get more done. It’s an illusion and this exercise proves it.

The word multitasking was invented for computers. The book “The ONE thing” by Gary Keller explains very well what multitasking really means:

“Multitasking is about multiple tasks alternately sharing one resource (The CPU), but in time the context was flipped and it became interpreted to mean multiple tasks being done simultaneously by one resource (a person).”

We humans can do two or more things, but we can only give our attention to one thing. When our attention gets interrupted (distractions like notifications, phone calls…) we need time to get back to where we were. The more complicated the task the more time we will need to gain your focus back.

If you know how to drive, you will remember how challenging it was at the beginning to drive, you needed to remember a LOT of new things and sometimes your attention was 100% required in the driving activity.
Once you got familiar, you could then relax and you required less attention.

The more repetition the more you can automate a task. This doesn’t mean that you are not paying attention, you just require less attention, and you may think that you can multitask.

What are your thoughts about multitasking?

This video is included in our online course “Embracing Minimalism”.