Laura Stack* says researchers have proven that some people are at their best when they multitask — but they are a very small proportion of the population.
If you honestly, truly believe you’re great at multitasking, I have disappointing news: You’re honestly, truly not.
Numerous studies have confirmed one of the findings of a 2009 pilot study of heavy multitaskers by Stanford University psychologists: That those who are convinced they’ve mastered multitasking invariably prove bad at it.
Rather, they excel at task-switching — rapidly flipping to the mode of thought required by a secondary task.
Think of it as one of those two-sided whiteboards.
When you task-switch, you flip from one board full of information to the other.
If you happen to have a three-sided board, you can handle a third task.
Any more than that and you’ll have to start erasing modes of thought whenever you switch, sketching in new ones as you go.
That’s when memory, attention, and productivity start to suffer.
For a while, researchers thought true multitaskers didn’t exist; then they found that 2.5 per cent of their test subjects could multitask better than they could single-task.
These ‘super-taskers’ didn’t even consider it a big deal; it was easy.
Further research showed that super-taskers think differently from the rest of us.
When asked to multitask while inside a brain scanner, they showed less brain activity than the control group in areas devoted to attention and cognitive processing — even when the controls were not multitasking.
Apparently, super-tasker brains are wired more efficiently in those areas.
It’s as close to a superpower as any of us will ever see in real life.
Of the people I expect to read this blog entry, some will be capable of super-tasking.
If you suspect you’re one of them, check your work performance for these factors.
You have a high level of attentional control:
You have no problem identifying and focusing on key objects in a cluttered environment.
You instinctively key on what matters, even when multiple distractions compete aggressively for your attention.
You make important decisions instantly:
You cut right to the heart of the matter, see what’s important, and base your decisions on that.
This allows you to finish more work more efficiently in less time.
You flourish under stress:
You do best with a full plate, when a million things demand your attention and people keep bugging you constantly.
If you always produce good work even under these conditions (or especially under these conditions) without flirting with burnout, you’re probably a super-tasker.
You have better self-control when under a heavy workload:
Rather than freaking out and losing it when you’re snowed under, you feel calmer, more alive.
You enjoy being constantly busy and directing or completing multiple tasks in a relatively short time.
You hit peak efficiency when multitasking:
You don’t do worse at multiple tasks: You do better at all of them.
Multitasking seems easy, and you enjoy it; it may even seem easier than single-tasking, and infinitely less boring.
Super-tasking, as opposed to task-switching, may derive from both neural efficiency and excellent cognitive control.
This is the ability to interact with your environment in a goal-directed manner.
If you’re one of the lucky few, you have high mental ‘bandwidth’, focusing only on what matters for each task you’re juggling, though you can track multiple targets simultaneously.
If you’re not, stick to single-tasking.
Even if you think you’re good at multitasking, you’ll do best by focusing intensely on one thing at a time.
* Laura Stack is a keynote speaker, author and authority on productivity and performance. She has authored seven books, including her newest work, Doing the Right Things Right: How the Effective Executive Spends Time. She can be contacted at theproductivitypro.com.
This article first appeared on Laura’s blogsite.
