• BillyClark@piefed.socialEnglish
    7·
    17 hours ago

    I heard somewhere that people who think they’re good at multitasking actually work slower than people who think they are bad at multitasking.

    The reason is that when you switch between tasks, there is a mental penalty each time for that context switch. People who believe they are good at multitasking switch between tasks more often and so they pay the penalty more often.

    Because although most people can multitask, vanishingly few can do it effectively.

    • spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      10 hours ago

      If I remember from my degree, its a quality of depth/focus issue. Your brain settles into a task and unpacks that task (with all kinds of consideration for mental load, familiarity, etc). This takes about 20 minutes to get properly focused.

      Switching the context pops you out of that task, and then your brain has to resettle into the new one. You don’t get a bonus for switching between only two tasks, it takes about 20 minutes each time.

      So multitasking is effectively ruining your own focus everytime you switch, which is why they’re slower - you restart the 20 min clock every time you switch. Ppl doing familiar tasks can switch a little faster, and sometimes there’s a level of quasi-multitasking where you can work on automatic - but it has to be below conscious processing to happen (e.g., driving and then not realising how you got where you’re going, or you’re already intimately familiar with a file at work). It doesn’t quite count because your conscious processing doesn’t come into play, so it’s not really switching

    • okwhateverdude@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      14 hours ago

      You multitask because you think you are good at it.

      I multitask because my brain is ADHD and I struggle to get anything done.

      We are not the same