Multitasking Is Good

 

Over the last decade or more I've gotten into the habit of reading multiple books at once. 

I'm using the multitasking analogy from how computers appear to be running multiple applications or programs at once. Let's consider a scenario. You're writing a report using Microsoft Word and you're also searching on Google to get answers to questions you want to address in your report. Your Chrome browser is also running a tab with Gmail and just alerted you to inform you that you have a reminder email letting you know that your report is due tomorrow. 

All of this is seemingly happening concurrently. That is what we generally mean when we talk about multitasking. To keep things simple, let's take the single processor (CPU) example. Since it's a single processor, it can really only be running one application at a time. So, what's actually happening is that the processor is switching between the three applications (Word, Google Search, and Gmail) several times per second and making it appear as if it is doing three things at once.

Now let's consider a more human scenario. Let's refer to the human as Bob. In this case, there is no processor to rely on. Bob is the processor. As Bob is working on his report in Microsoft Word he gets a text message and glances at it to see what it is about. As Wanda walks by his desk and waves a hello at him he responds with a smile and a gesture of acknowledgment. 

This type of multitasking is often frowned upon, rightly so, because Bob is allowing himself to be distracted by events that appear to be urgent or important but ought to be ignored. There's a difference between urgent and important, but let's leave that for another time. 

In this scenario, let's assume Bob already knows what his top three priorities are and doesn't need to be reminded of their importance or deadlines. And a reminder about a lesser priority ought to be ignored. Therefore, Bob would be better off putting his phone on focus mode or do not disturb (DND) and keep his head down when people walk by so he can focus on his report.

To get to the point of this post, when Bob gets home or has free time on the weekend, he can use the same approach to focus on one task at a time. However, think of Bob as a much slower processor that switches tasks not multiple times a second but multiple times a day. To return to the example of reading multiple books at once that we started with, let's now consider the college student analogy.

Bob's daughter Katie attends college and usually attends two to three lectures a day. She might attend a one hour lecture on Economics and then grab a quick coffee before heading to her lecture on Music. No one is usually going to accuse her of multitasking here in the derogatory sense of the word. Equally, no one will claim that the Music lecture is distracting Katie from focusing on Economics.

The alternative would be for Katie to attend all of her Economics lectures in January and then attend all her Music lectures in February and so on. Almost no one considers this a good idea. The human brain actually needs to switch context once it tires of the same thing. When we go to the zoo we don't just go to the monkey exhibit and sit there until the zoo closes. Each of us decides how long we want to spend at the monkey exhibit before deciding to move on to the next exhibit of interest.

For me, reading books is similar. I don't consider switching books as a failure to focus or complete a book. I almost always finish books unless they suck (maybe 5% because I research carefully before selecting a book to read). Feel free to replace reading books with almost any other endeavor such as building a porch or grabbing groceries.

I view it as a conscious plan to switch to a different book at the end of a chapter and return to the paused book at another time. Not sure about novels, but in my view, this is a better way to ingest non-fiction books. Speaking of fiction, I usually also have a movie in my rotation (only one). I don't try to watch a whole movie in one sitting. That's too prohibitive. With streaming that is really easy and convenient to pause and return and fits perfectly into my lifestyle. 

In summary, there's a huge difference between switching context when you decide to versus allowing yourself to be interrupted or distracted. The former is a good thing.

Bringing it back full circle to multitasking at work, no busy modern day worker (especially a white collar worker) can avoid it and I am supportive as long as you control your environment rather than letting your environment control you.