Multitasking

So how important, exactly, is this skill in modern day life, and how hard is it to get better at it?

Because I am terrible at it; most likely do to my love for focusing entirely on one thing and tuning everyone out.

Hmmm... it is important. Men can do it, but women are much, much, better than men. And men who are effeminate/metrosexual (but may not be gay) are better at it than non-effeminate/metrosexual men, due to some wierd-ass thing in your brain. Yay for me.

We are expected, in this day and age, to be able to do many things at once. The youth do it. We consume more than two sources of media at one time. Right now, I'm watching TV while typing this. Therefore, I am multitasking - following the story, and writing this. It also means I absorb more media than if I did each individually.

However, the quality of each deteriorates. Right now I missed a crucial scene, and while I focus more on that, my writing starts to slip a little. To be more focused is best when you want something done, to the best of your ability. For many people who have grown up on tech, that will be increasingly harder to do.

It is important to at least look like your multitasking, but doing so? Not so much.

And what the hell happened to your name?

All the studies I've seen on it suggest that it doesn't work all that well for getting things done- no matter how good you are at multitasking, the primary thing you're doing is always suffering.

On the other hand, getting work done during spare odd moments- which is often mistaken for multitasking- is a fantastic skill to have.

Well, we don't actually do multiple things at once. We just switch off rapidly. People who are good at multitasking are able to put one thing on hold at the right time in order to work on something else. I think in general it's better to do one thing well, instead of everything sloppily, but sometimes you have to deal.

People who are bad at multitasking end up switching their focus at crucial points and fouling everything up. The best way to get better at this is to do things slowly at first and one at a time. This way you become aware of the times that you don't need to be paying much attention. The other trick is to use mental cues so that you don't forget to switch back to your first task. I worked as a short order cook for a while and cues helped to get through multitasking at dinner rushes. For example, I'd grill a burger until it was done on one side. Then I'd throw a batch of fries into the deep fryer and dress the bun. Cooking the burger halfway, cooking the fries and putting the bun together took roughly the same amount of time. So, by the time I was finished with the toppings the burger would be cooked through, the fries would be perfectly golden brown, and the customer would get a perfect meal. Mental cues...use them.

edited 26th Jun '11 4:15:39 PM by sketch162000

Yep yep.

Also, If you want to watch something like your favorite anime or drama show, just watch it. Otherwise, you won't absorb nearly as much of the show as you would otherwise. Seriously.

But yeah, I get really sick and tired of people who don't realize multi-tastking is just rapidly switching your attention from one thing to another.

Agreeing with both Javu and Sketch. Multitasking is knowing what "steps" a given task needs and which of those steps require waiting or other periods of "dead time", and filling that dead time with other tasks or steps of tasks.

Like, you know a document will take a long time to print, so you do some filing in the meantime. Or you're stuck waiting on hold on the phone, so you work on writing up an e-mail you need to send. That sort of thing.

Or to put it another way: It's not actually doing two things at once, it's alternating doing bits of things—but with your full focus on those bits—so both things are finished at about the same time.

I'm absolutely awful at multitasking. Once I focus on something, I have ridiculously hard time un-focusing from it. People who say that women are better at multitasking than men annoy me, because most men on this planet are definitely better at multitasking than I am. I can hardly manage to do two different things during the same week, what to talk about doing them at the same time. Though most of the time it doesn't really get in my way, one can do just fine while focusing on one thing for weeks.

edited 27th Jun '11 5:07:32 AM by fanty

I actually started this thread because I have to start driving now, but I'm terrible at it because I as of yet cannot really focus on more than one thing. So much as fiddling with the blinker is enough to cause trouble for me and send me rolling off the side of the freeway.