When you try to do too much at the same time, you sometimes wind-up getting nothing done properly.
Multitasking is so common in today's culture that some people thought it was 'normal'. But findings shows that there are some impact on our brains and productivity levels in the corporate world. According to the Harvard Business Review, multitasking has led to a drop in productivity and efficiency by up to 40%. A study done by the National Bureau of Economic Research discovered that workers' performance deteriorated and projects were taking longer to complete.
Multitasking is just switching back and forth between tasks. Hence, similar tasks are competing by using the same part of the brain, which slows it down between transitions. So, if you are on the phone with a client while also typing an email, your room for error increases because the visual cortex is competing with the audio aspect of someone talking to you. The same problem applies if you are talking on the phone while driving. It's beside the point that you are on hands-free because it is your brain who needs to focus its full attention on the road.
in one research study by Frank Drews, an assistant professor of psychology at the university of Utah found that people are as impaired when they drive and talk on a cell-phone as they are when they drink-drive at the legal blood-alcohol limit.
Doing too many things simultaneously means the brain losses its capacity to attend fully and gradually to anything (New York Times). The best way to address this is to focus on one thing at a time and do it well. When you are at work, truly be at work.
Shared From:
The Dangers of Multitasking
by Jojo Struys
Different Spin
Starmetro, 18 September 2015
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