Multitasking Does NOT Make You More Productive

[Bloob]

All this study tells me, is that studying needs to be more fun

 

[cookoy]

I agree multitasking is not good. Tried it often during exams, reading the test question, pretending to think, scanning left and right for any answer i can copy. Didn't do me good. So kids out there, stop surfing and start studying.

 

[gm0n3y]

I can't imagine how little I would get done at work if I never multi-tasked. So when I'm waiting ~10-20 minutes for my project to build I should just sit and watch it? Or I shouldn't answer incoming email as they arrive but let them sit for hours until I'm done my current task. Or I shouldn't write an email reply during a conference call. There are so many cases where multi-tasking is essential to being productive in my job. This is a very narrowly defined study. How can watching TV ever expect to increase productivity.

 

[zybch]

Since when have the opinions and feelings of students ever been something worth taking note of?

 

[Guest]

person's attention is limitted resource ... consider it like const. amount of energy ..
if you concentrate/focus on one task ... you can go deeper ...
once you spread over many ... it covers a larger area ... but tends to stay on the surface ...
there is no good or bad ... it's just the RIGHT one for a certain situation ...
i.e.:
- problem management required digging deeper ...
- organization skill implies going wider ... multitasking ... covering large area ... communicating with many people =)

 

[lancelot123]

Anyone that thinks they can multitask successfully are delusional.

 

[cmartin011]

brain has to cores conscious and unconscious there is only slight area of multitasking there. humans are only able to do one task perfectly. after you start adding in other tasks there will be a clear degrading in the original task being done..

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

[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]
This guy deserves another like Tom's.... Make the amout more than 20

 

[Guest]

There was better research done several months ago on the subject of super-taskers. People who actually do BETTER when doing many things at once. That is to say, doing math while driving (a simulator, for safety of course). A very very small amount of people actually did the math faster and more accurately while driving the simulator than they did while only doing the math. The vast majority of everyone else did the math slower and with errors or had an accident in the simulator.

It's obvious that doing many things at once slows you down, but this study is just dumb. it's done all wrong. Also the idea of multi tasking in the workplace is often only something done by very few people and is often a necessity and not done to increase productivity. For instance, taking a memo and meeting minutes(listening while writing), or trouble shooting (operating a device/machine while having a conversation about it).

I'll tell you what multi tasking is not, editing spreadsheets while watching kitten videos on youtube. That isn't helping anyone. Finish the spreadsheet and then watch the kitten or do 15 minutes on the spread sheet, go watch some kittens, then come back to the spreadsheet. Some people listen to music while working and while that can be dangerous on a jobsite (you don't hear a truck backing up on you) in an office it usually just helps the day go by which can be very mind numbing. We certainly don't want people throwing themselves of the roof of the office, right, china?

 

[beoza]

From what I have read in most of these comments is that almost everyone seems to think that while your waiting for some other task to complete you go and do something else is multitasking which it is not, this is considered time management. Answering emails while you wait for your project to build is time management not multitasking, your not physically or mentally doing both at the same time. You are using your time in a more productive way, which does increase productivity. What the study is trying to point out is that as humans we can only "Focus" on one particular task at a time, the other stuff is basically white noise. Granted there are those individuals who are the exception to this rule. There are times when I can't concentrate while studying for my IT courses, I load Winamp turn on the music, and I can then concentrate on what it is that I am doing. Think of it like Foreground tasks, and Background tasks, in the foreground you are reading, studying, or doing something work related, in the background you have other things going on, but your main focus is your foreground task. This is not the first study on multitasking, I remember reading years ago on Toms about a similar study done in the UK, that had similar findings as this study does.

 

[tygrus]

What about editing research results while running another analysis in the background and waiting for it to finish. Does frequently checking and answering emails while compiling a document or presentation reduce the otherwise linear productivity ? Can you monitor the progress of several background tasks while setting new tasks to start ? Can you women-vs-men cook while helping their child with homework or assignment ? Mute the TC during ads to do some web surfing of the hot topics of the day or facebook/blog/tweat ?

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]drethon[/nom]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[/citation]I just got better at school as I got further through college--that's why my GPA went up. What schools are these where everyone is getting near 4.0's though? In my college and department, average was like 2.8.

 

[TheKurrgan]

Ok realizing we are all a bit of a "computer" crowd, and while the brain is easy to compare to a computer, there is really very little in common at all in operation. Our brains do more tasks at one time than most computers out there, its just in "the background"
That said, its important that the concept of COGNITIVE be examined.. Anything that has to do with body interaction (including all 5 senses causing a physical response, be it driving or even a video game) is not necessarily a cognitive function. While it does require higher brain function, those are more automated. Example: Try and solve two math problems at the exact same time.
Thats a little harder than taking a dump and writing this reply at the same time..
Most of what people consider multitasking is actually time division, something that is entirely different..
that said, time for paperwork.......

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]TheKurrgan[/nom]..that said, time for paperwork.......[/citation]I don't do paperwork at work. I post on forums.

 

[JOSHSKORN]

Why are people still going to school? Just so they can be part of these ridiculous studies? Sorry for only having an AA degree from a community college, but multi-tasking DOES help you get more done. It's called one stressor is another stressor's stress-relief. Long story short, you do one thing, stop it, do something else, giving your mind time to think about the first task while the light-bulb is active on a different task, and BAM...a no idea is born on the first task.

Of course, if one of your tasks involve watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians or some other mindless reality TV show where the plot is "who didn't flush the toilet? I fell in, got pee all over my ass and it was so gross!"...well, your brain is already screwed.

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]Why are people still going to school? Just so they can be part of these ridiculous studies?[/citation]Have you ever seen Old School? College is awesome--that's why I tell people to go. It's like living in an amusement park, but everybody is your age and people tell you you're being productive with 4 years while you play half the day and all night then go to class, which is way more fun than work, occasionally.

Of course, that's only what I thought of college, but that's precisely why I didn't go to Cal Tech or somewhere boring like that.

 

[doive1231]

There's truth in a lot of our sayings and one is, "Too many cooks spoil the broth" or if you try to do too many things at once, you will make errors or if you focus on one task at a time you should make less mistakes. Why don't they research the number of errors made by a multi-tasker v a non-multi-tasker?

 

[f-14]

flawed study if they are trying to figure out impacts of multitaking.
how many of these people studied had ADD or ADHD, now those people can multi task up a storm.
how many of us listened to music at the same time as reading.
how much multi tasking is reading a book about one subject while watching tv. they should have told them they had to read one chapter by the commercial break, then switched to another subjects book and do the same, then quizzed them on all the chapters they read at the end of each day for 5 days and on the shows they were watching for a study that took whole year and then ask the students to come up with a viable report on what was working for them and what was not and ways to improve it on a strict budget of $300. much like a real life job.
some of the jobs i was most satisfied in and resulted in 3000% productivity increase for every one was a retail warehouse, you had to take customer calls, get price quotes and take customer orders, get price quotes, pick their product, return their surplus product and restock, return their credit, unload supply trucks, and branch transfers, load up branch transfer trucks, stock the warehouse and yard while unloading in confined space with a lack of equipment and space to put it all and keep all the brands and colors and styles organized. oh and i'd also have to be picking route orders for our delivery drivers that were going out that day which only took them 2-4 hours to deliver a semi load 4-6 deliverys consisting of 10-16 pallets of materials.
that was a construction supply company, if you couldn't multi-task and well, you couldn't handle it because you had to do a min of 3 things at all times due to the lack of 3 forklifts for 7 guys, if that forklift was sitting or running around empty the place turned into a nightmare. and somedays you had to unload 16 pallets of shingles from 50 trucks for 3 months straight while doing all the rest of this stuff.
the computer order system was bakery from back in the 1970's, there were no RF tracking guns or location system, no bar code readers.
we set regional sales records 3 years in a row my final year our branch beat out even the hurricane belt for the national sales leader with our top salesman making 3 million for 1st place and 1 million for 3rd place by the other, they are commission based. and we were able to fill 70-90 orders a day on a consistent basis ( we'd lose 20 orders if we ran out of a particular color ) and we had the best manager in the nation able to guess which brand and color was going to be in style the next season and order almost enough 6-9 months ahead of time.
i was the least productive as far as completing orders per day, i kept the place organized, clean and handled 90% of the will calls and customer returns and handled the city desk 30% of the time and was one of 2 guys who knew where EVERYTHING was and how much we had and what production series it was as you couldn't mix product 3 months apart with out color mismatching despite it being the same product and could tell every one else where to find what they were looking for on over 1000+ products for everything on the outside of any house.
by doing that i made it easy or simple for every one else to get what they needed and get out FAST, while it was not always mcdonalds drive thru fast that was my goal and i achieved it enough for 3 years to turn around a highly negatively rated branch to a very highly recommended branch. it took 2&1/2 years for me to work 3 guys to quit who sat on the forklifts all day talking to their wives or fighting kids while doing nothing or absolute minimum in the busiest parts of the day.
oh and try doing that while one of the most worthless guys is busy sabotaging your productivity giving you all his priority & hard work with no equipment to get it done with and every one else yelling at you because it's not done and they need it right now!
most people cracked, i ate that up and got stuff done even if it was still a few minutes later then when it was supposed to be done by and most of your order weighed round 40-70 pounds a piece.
i owe alot of the time management and multi taking ability and organization to RTS video games like starcraft, total annihilation, MOO, command and conquers, star wars galactic battlegrounds, rise of nations, company of hero's.
nothing that is simulated will push you nearly 1/2 as much as a real life job in a high demand fast paced environment.