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Reading e-mail, sorting data and talking on the
phone at once - multitasking clearly saves time in
a fast-paced world. Or does it? Anybody who expects
to get ahead today better master the art of
multitasking, right? A recent study of
employees by the Families and Work Institute in New
York City finds that some 45 percent of U.S.
workers believe they are asked or expected to work
on too many tasks at once.
Their bosses might be surprised to learn that
they are actually wasting their workers' time. As
it turns out, the human brain cannot truly ape the
computer's knack of crunching data in the
background while toggling among processing windows.
Instead a growing number of studies sow that trying
to juggle jobs rather than completing them
sequentially can take longer overall and leave
multitaskers with a reduced ability to perform each
task. In addition, the stress associated with
multitasking may contribute to short-term memory
difficulties. The combination results in
inefficiency, sloppy thinking and mistakes - not to
mention the possible dangers of divided attention
for drivers, air traffic controllers and others who
handle machinery. Recognizing the problem, New
Jersey became the second state (after New York)
this past July to ban drivers from using a
cellphone without a headset.
How can a time-management strategy that has
become part of the common wisdom actually be so off
base? To explore that question requires a
closer look at an area of consciousness research
that examines how the brain focuses attention.
So, check out the Premier issue of Scientific
American Mind to get all of the details. And, in
the meantime, let the e-mail site while you work on
that presentation. After all, a certain
satisfaction comes from a job well done.
Source:
Scientific
American Mind, Premier Issues, 1204,
www.sciam.com
In this
issue: other interesting articles include:
How Group Think makes Killers; Treating
Depresssion: Pills or Talk; and How Best to
Treat Children with ADD to mention a
few.
* * *
It is said that women are multitaskers and men
are more single task oriented. It's the difference
from being scattered and being focused. - Gordon
Clay
The shortest way to do many things is to do only
one thing at a time. - Richard Cech
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