The Myth of Multitasking

It seems we all "multitask" these days... talking to a coworker while writing a blog post (Kate), answering the cellphone while crunching the monthly numbers, reading a new email while taking a phonecall. In fact, you're multitasking right now, aren't you? Dave Crenshaw would so no, you're actually not... he would say you're "switchtasking." You see, his Myth of Multitasking (watch out, it's a parable) not only exposes the inefficiencies of multitasking, it states that it doesn't even exist. Why? Well, in his words:

Because the truth is we really cannot do two things at the same time--we are only one person with only one brain. Neurologically speaking, it has been proven to be impossible. What we are really doing is switching back and forth between two tasks rapidly, typing here, paying attention there, checking our "crackberry" here, answering voicemail there, back and forth back and forth at a high rate. Keep this up over a long period of time, and you have deeply engrained habits that cause stress and anxiety and dropped responsibilities and a myriad of productivity & focus problems. It's little wonder so many people complain of increasingly short attention spans!

The quote above is taken from Dave's guest-post at The Cranky Widgets Blog.Since its release on the 18th, the book and author have been on a "blog tour," being reviewed and interviewed all over the blogosphere. If you're interested in learning more about Dave and his ideas, I've put links to many of those posts below. Interviews: Virtually Organized Black Belt Productivity Reviews: awake@thewheel Get Rich Slowly Slacker Manager Change Your Thoughts