Dan Harris: Think You’re a Good Multitasker? Stop Lying

Here's one of my favorite pet peeves  -- all the braggarts out there who insist they're efficient multitaskers and delight in putting down people of my ilk who believe in the old school "do one thing at a time, do it very well, then move on."  As Dan Harris of ABC News points out in this entertaining 90 second video, there really is no such thing as multitasking, unless by multitasking we mean that using downtime from one task to continue progress on another, but of course that is not what is meant.

Whenever one attempts to do more than one thing at a time, the end result is that all things are done poorly.  Since they're done poorly, that usually means they must be redone.  Since they're usually redone in still another multitasking environment, they are again done poorly and again must be redone.  Thus, before the task gets completed properly, many multiples of effort have been expended on it beyond what would have been if the person had just focused on it exclusively and done it right the first time.  Because of this false belief in multitasking we have become a far less efficient society.  It is one of my pet peeves.

Dan Harris: Think You’re a Good Multitasker? Stop Lying | The Big Picture

P.S.  I would even take issue with Harris' claim that only computers can multitask due to their multiple processors.  I don't care how many processors a computer (or person) has, it is still far more efficient to devote that brain power to one task rather than multiple.  Have you ever noticed that when you try to use an application on a computer while running another in the background, suddenly the PC slows way down and both jobs done together actually take longer than doing each one separately?  Try this test sometime.  You'll be surprised.