Why Multitask

We live in a world where life is changing at a faster rate than ever before. Distractions mount up and, as a result, we separate our attention among many tasks.

While the ability to multitask has to many employers become an asset, it begs the question as to why that is.

Sure, an employee walks into work and finds a stack of assignments to complete by day's end, but rather than doing one at a time, the employee makes strides at a few of them simultaneously.

But, these are just the work assignments, what else races through the employee's mind? Music to listen to, and text messages to reply to (hopefully work-related ones), and before you know it, the employee has almost forgot what the priority is.

Call it a short attention span. Call it versatile and tech savvy. And call it life spinning and spinning and not allowing for you to pause to push through one- single- assignment. Our focus has shifted.

Technology doesn't help. Count how many tabs you have open on your Internet browser right now. Why couldn't you just close the first one once you finished viewing the site?

Our smartphones aren't much better. Applications promote the user to go back and forth between various 'apps' at their leisure.

According to an Ohio State University study, "researchers found that students were more likely to multitask when they felt an increase in cognitive needs" (McGinn).

The reason we multitask is because we do so to satisfy our emotional needs.

Yeah, and so we keep complete all these tasks to please others, and that's what employers have come to demand. You have to do this job for me and this job for her, and this job for him. You have to monitor the time, so that you can do each of the following by the corresponding times.

Even though this 'skill' of placing your memory at multiple points along the line of production stretches you, it doesn't always benefit you.

Stanford researcher Clifford Nass's 2009 study showed that even when frequent multitaskers focus on a single activity, they use their brains less effectively (Lapowsky).

In 2010, a study by neuroscientists at the French medical research agency Inserm found that "when people focus on two tasks simultaneously, each side of the brain tackles a different task" (Lapowsky).

Shall we propose a two task limit for optimum productivity.

We multitask because our emotions not only drive us to, but tell us that we gain a sense of productivity; albeit, the greater number of tasks at once, the greater likelihood of errors.

#Multitask #Employment #Jobs #Distractions