Multitasking Does NOT Make You More Productive

[Guest]

Get over it. Multitasking is not what you should be doing, at least not if you want to be productive.

Multitasking Does NOT Make You More Productive : Read more

 

[welshmousepk]

really?

It took a university funded study to realise that watching TV while studying has a negative impact on productivity?
maybe the grad students who did these tests would have known that already if they spent less time in front of their own TVs..

 

[SirGCal]

Well, the researchers are either wrong or the few people they studied are horrible at doing it. I started multi-tasking years ago and my productivity went up a measurable 300%. If I focus on just one thing, my brain goes stale and I almost get bored. Multi-tasking helps me focus, ironically. But I'd be really surprised if more then 3-5% of the population was able to effectively work the way I do. Although, I also got a 3.68 and 4.0 in my two college degrees and never studied once. Again, not many people work the way I do.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]SirGCal[/nom]Well, the researchers are either wrong or the few people they studied are horrible at doing it. I started multi-tasking years ago and my productivity went up a measurable 300%. If I focus on just one thing, my brain goes stale and I almost get bored. Multi-tasking helps me focus, ironically. But I'd be really surprised if more then 3-5% of the population was able to effectively work the way I do. Although, I also got a 3.68 and 4.0 in my two college degrees and never studied once. Again, not many people work the way I do.[/citation]
Same feeling

 

[gmarsack]

Clearly their test subjects never wrote an email to one client while on a conference call with another client. Multitasking DOES safe time if done correctly, and is the same as exceeding the speed limit (not recommended). It all depends on what you're doing and what might be appropriate for the situation.

 

[domenic]

First, watching TV is not a task. Second, multitasking is not about increasing productivity. It is a required skill for managing one's tasks in most (non-repetitive) work environments.

 

[drethon]

[citation][nom]SirGCal[/nom]Well, the researchers are either wrong or the few people they studied are horrible at doing it. I started multi-tasking years ago and my productivity went up a measurable 300%. If I focus on just one thing, my brain goes stale and I almost get bored. Multi-tasking helps me focus, ironically. But I'd be really surprised if more then 3-5% of the population was able to effectively work the way I do. Although, I also got a 3.68 and 4.0 in my two college degrees and never studied once. Again, not many people work the way I do.[/citation]

Yep, throughout my undergrad I payed close attention and took careful notes. The results were I didn't remember half of what I took notes for and graduated with a 3.35. For my Master's degree I played computer games the whole time (Eve Online drone boats don't require much concentration) and only took notes on key items. Result is a 4.0 and I still use a lot of what I learned a couple years later.

Just my bent $0.02

 

[Marfig]

The study is so limited in its approach to multitasking that it should be instead named "Watching TV and reading at the same time doesn't improve productivity"

There's so many instances of correct and productive multitasking. From having two screens to program and read documentation at the same time, to be able to be on a phone answering customer calls while filling an incident form. Also the taking notes during a speech, or the most common, the simple act of driving a car.

 

[doron]

What a load of crap. The first thing I learned in the University is the need to define. What is this multitasking they're babbling about?

"Hey man heard about this new multitasking research? So yeah I installed MS-DOS cuz I wanna be more productive. Oh and I got iPhone 2 and sorry I got to stop talking to you cuz I wanna make some food and watch it cook. Later I'm gonna drink some coffee while doing absolutely NOTHING, and then I'll call you again. Now if you'll excuse me there's a spider crawling on my neck for the past 30 minutes so I really have to go to do something about it".

Even if they properly define what they refer to as "multitasking", for me, feeling good is the most important thing. If you don't feel good about doing something then you probably won't do it often and you'll be more depressed. That, in turn will make you less productive. I seriously despise this research..

 

[greatsaltedone]

We Americans are way too concerned with the concept of "productivity". Shouldn't the goal be to make ourselves happy while completing tasks within a reasonable amount of time? I swear, as a culture we need to chill the F out.

 

[mcd023]

[citation][nom]greatsaltedone[/nom]We Americans are way too concerned with the concept of "productivity". Shouldn't the goal be to make ourselves happy while completing tasks within a reasonable amount of time? I swear, as a culture we need to chill the F out.[/citation]
In college or grad school, you give up this right

On another note, I say the multitasking doesn't work because you're still running on single core.

 

[velocityg4]

So I guess I was wrong. When a computer is working for an hour or more on a task I assigned it I should just sit there and stare at the screen. Rather than getting something else done on another computer, work on some paperwork, read a book, &c.

 

[Supertrek32]

Erm... Watching TV (in the sense we're talking about) isn't ever productive, so I'm not sure how doing so at the same time could be construed to ever be increasing productivity. The study is very flawed. It's like including the Sahara while studying how concentrated a fish population is.

 

[hragarand]

Multi-tasking is a snare and a delusion that you see everyday. Next time you are in a meeting at work, or explaining something to a friend who is (saving time and be more productive) by multi-tasking their email or texts on the phone, ask them - what did I just say and what are your thoughts on that - you will get, ah can you repeat that!

 

[Thorfkin]

Reading through the replies I couldn't help but notice how many people reacted emotionally to this article. It makes me wonder if perhaps the research is accurate but that it disregards the importance of people's emotional well-being.

As a general rule I agree with the results of this research but the context is critical. If you're studying and you find yourself unable to concentrate, it's often beneficial to turn your attention to another task and come back to your studying after a few minutes. I find that if I try to focus for too long on one subject that my mind gets recalcitrant and it gets progressively harder to be productive. For example when I'm working I find it beneficial to turn my attention to reading an occasional news article like this one.

I think how we each define multitasking may skew our perception of this research's findings. I work in customer relations. Often times my work will require that I address multiple customers simultaneously. My experience is that if I try to actively juggle these customers, the overall quality of my work declines sharply. Given that fact, what I will do is queue them up linearly and then use any gaps in my current communication to begin researching the next issue. Some might technically call that multitasking but the fact that I have to queue them up and address them linearly does lend credence to this researcher's results.

So i guess my own conclusion is that limited multitasking is beneficial to overall efficiency and concentration but that if you try to do too many tasks at once, the quality of your focus on each subject may decline dramatically.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]welshmousepk[/nom]really? It took a university funded study to realise that watching TV while studying has a negative impact on productivity? maybe the grad students who did these tests would have known that already if they spent less time in front of their own TVs..[/citation]

Wow, you completely missed the point, didn't you?

 

[cirdecus]

Wow..

I didn't know that productive multi-tasking included 1 productive task and 1 non-productive task?

Thats funny. So lets claim that multi-tasking is not productive at all.

OR

You would survey people who study a book while listening to a lecture on their iPhone. Thats right, 2 productive tasks done at the SAME TIME! Bet you 1000000 bucks thats more productive.

Retarded survey. That's like saying i could be reading playboy, watching captain kangaroo, listening to Korn but reading the odyssey in brail is overall going to give me less of an understanding of the odyssey that if i were to read it alone. RETARDS.

There's lies, damn lies and statistics.

 

[shin0bi272]

The thing this study misses is that if youre doing something that can run on its own like say a virus scan on your pc. You can then go do something like the laundry and get two things done at once. If you are on the phone while doing the laundry then you are getting 3 things done at once. if you are on the phone while doing laundry and scanning for viruses and typing an email you are getting 4 things done... its all about the attention needed per activity. You cant watch tv and study for a test at the same time because both require 100% attention to be done properly.

So in certain cases they are right in most cases they are wrong.

 

[Haserath]

[citation][nom]marfig[/nom]The study is so limited in its approach to multitasking that it should be instead named "Watching TV and reading at the same time doesn't improve productivity"There's so many instances of correct and productive multitasking. From having two screens to program and read documentation at the same time, to be able to be on a phone answering customer calls while filling an incident form. Also the taking notes during a speech, or the most common, the simple act of driving a car.[/citation]
The first one and the last one aren't multi-tasking... The notes during a speech can be sort of considered one task, but I know I miss certain words when taking notes and trying to listen to a speech.

Driving a car is doing multiple things for one task(basically what you've described in all but your incident form examples, which I'm sure you don't do both as well as just one task at once). Think 'Driving a car while on your cell phone.'

 

[Haserath]

[citation][nom]Thorfkin[/nom]Reading through the replies I couldn't help but notice how many people reacted emotionally to this article. It makes me wonder if perhaps the research is accurate but that it disregards the importance of people's emotional well-being.As a general rule I agree with the results of this research but the context is critical. If you're studying and you find yourself unable to concentrate, it's often beneficial to turn your attention to another task and come back to your studying after a few minutes. I find that if I try to focus for too long on one subject that my mind gets recalcitrant and it gets progressively harder to be productive. For example when I'm working I find it beneficial to turn my attention to reading an occasional news article like this one.I think how we each define multitasking may skew our perception of this research's findings. I work in customer relations. Often times my work will require that I address multiple customers simultaneously. My experience is that if I try to actively juggle these customers, the overall quality of my work declines sharply. Given that fact, what I will do is queue them up linearly and then use any gaps in my current communication to begin researching the next issue. Some might technically call that multitasking but the fact that I have to queue them up and address them linearly does lend credence to this researcher's results.So i guess my own conclusion is that limited multitasking is beneficial to overall efficiency and concentration but that if you try to do too many tasks at once, the quality of your focus on each subject may decline dramatically.[/citation]
Yes, that's exactly it.

We have to think of our type of 'multi-tasking' as an out of order, single processor core. We don't process multiple threads at once, but we can process multiple items within a thread at once.

If one thread stalls, we can move on to another thread to complete work until we can work on the first thread(what Thorfkin stated). And if you try to complete two intensive threads at once, you really achieve nothing at all(hang).

But when you throw in emotions, the entire process changes... Once you're bored with something, boredom makes it difficult to focus on the subject. Having tv on might actually satisfy a person enough to focus on studying long enough to learn something, as long as they don't focus on the tv that much, especially while actually learning.