This article is going to be interactive, so be prepared to get your mind working a little bit.
How good at multitasking would you say you are? Most people are relatively good at balancing multiple tasks and being on top of all of them at once. Doing homework, listening to music, texting people. You can probably do all those at once and still get a lot of work done.
The thing is, you’re not actually multitasking, no matter how good at it you might think you are.
Stop reading and grab a piece of paper, a pen and your phone timer. Got them? Alright, now try this exercise.
First, start the timer and write the letters A through Z, then the numbers one through 26. How fast was it?
Now try that same thing, only this time, time yourself and follow the pattern A, 1, B, 2, C, 3, until you reach the number 26.
Which method was faster? The first one, every time.
This is because multitasking doesn’t actually exist. Sure, you may be able to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time, drive a car and listen to music and walk and chew gum at the same time. However, there are differences here.
Multitasking, as we know it today, is doing more than one task at a time. The word originally was a computer-programming word for running two processes simultaneously. Humans are not computers though, and we can’t actually perform two processes at the same time with the same efficiency.
What we think of as multitasking is actually called task switching. This is an unconscious process of changing from one task to another. Humans can task switch, and we can do it really, really fast. However, no matter how good humans are at this, switching back and forth decreases overall cognitive performance and makes us less efficient at both things.
Think about when you’re driving somewhere unfamiliar and turn the music down to focus. There is too much going on in your brain to focus on driving and paying attention to the surroundings, and the music is distracting.
This has obvious implications for studying and doing work, such as focusing on one thing and not checking texts and emails, talking to others or changing songs. Even though skipping a song might seem harmless, it is distracting the brain and switching from the task of studying to the task of picking a song to listen to, making the overall studying less efficient.
To combat this, try to avoid being on your phone while studying or working and trying to minimize all distractions as much as possible. It’s also much more effective to study in intervals and take short breaks in between, such as 50 minutes on with a 10-minute break, during which you can get up, move your legs and check your phone.
Especially with finals coming up, don’t jeopardize your time studying by trying to do too much at once under the guise of being a good multitasker. Instead, remain focused on a singular task, and see how much more efficient and concentrated you can be.
By Ryan Signorino, Training Editor
signorra15@bonaventure.edu
