Multi-tasking in real life

In today's technological environment, the notion of multi-tasking has been deeply ingrained into our minds. The first thing we ask ourselves when we get a phone is "Can this device multitask? Can it play music in the background?". Similarly, in our own lives, we try to accomplish a ton of work while blasting Rihanna or Katy Perry into our ears and in the midst of all this, we try to update our Facebook status and check for new emails. You may think that it is efficient but think again. Have you really achieved the concentration you hoped to achieve before you started your work? Did you ever feel like you lost your sense of time?(if no, it means you haven't really focussed enough)

Anyways, here is the fact. Humans C-A-N-N-O-T multi-task.

In fact, what we refer to as multi-tasking is purely the shifting of your focus quickly. When checking our email, we focus all our concentration on the email. When we are listening to music, we pay attention to the lyrics. When finishing a project, we are rechecking the minute details. Our brain in reality is shifting focus from one object to another at lightning speed.

For some tasks, they can be extremely hard to achieve both at once if both the tasks are of the same type. For example, you are unable to chat with someone while talking on the phone as both the activities are fighting for attention from the "communications" part of your brain; you can only do either of them at one time - not both. The first video below is an interesting explanation of why we - humans - can't multi-task. The second video emphasizes more on the differences between the way the male and female brains work specifically in the area of multi-tasking. Caution: the second video may or may not hurt your male/female pride (depending on the way you like to operate).

One way to not fall into this modern day "multi-tasking trap" is by focussing. Now you might be thinking, "Isn't that obvious?". My question is, why don't we do it then when we all know the answer? The key is in getting the distractions away from us. Depending on your work, the online chat may be a distraction, the hard drive spinning on your may be a distraction or the TV in the other room could be your main distraction. Think about it carefully, analyze your surroundings, and then work on eliminating all the unnecessary background hindrances.

Recently, I was watching some TED videos and found a video related to the topic at hand. The TED video below suggests us ways to be more productive at office. For management guys, some of the suggestions below might be completely against your believes. Nevertheless, you may want to trust TED guys for once and try this out in your office: do not have your weekly Monday meeting for once and let your employees work for three to four hours continuously on one of the days. The results will be obvious.