Multitasking Cost
The subject of multitasking has come up in several books I’ve read recently as well as in a few conversations. Before this point I used to think multitasking was fairly harmless and potentially beneficial in some cases. I figured I was pretty good at it, being able to keep multiple threads going along in my head as I performed tasks. I’ve observed others that didn’t see to do this as well.
These recently discussions of multitasking have made me reconsider how harmful it can be, especially if you’re doing it all the time. Here’s a recent article from The Atlantic that discusses multitasking in more detail, including referencing several studies.
One of the things that I’ve settled on is that I should try to limit myself to two tasks at any point. You could consider this in terms of programming tasks so that if one of them gets held up, you can switch to the other to keep from sitting idle. While you might be tempted to have 3 or 4 tasks that you can choose from this is where your mind will get scattered.
There’s also the cost of switching context. I don’t know how many times I didn’t feel I had enough time to get into some task, especially at night when I only had a couple hours to spare. In some ways it seems illogical as how long would it really take me to get rocking on a new task? 10 or 15 minutes to where I’m comfortably immersed in the new context? If I only had 30 minutes, would it even be worth trying? Maybe my sense of hesitation comes from realizing the cost of immersion and getting to a place where I’m productive on the new task without the fear of being interrupted or having to stop before I’ve gotten a good chunk of it done. These feelings reinforce for me what some are saying about multitasking and its costs.
The other aspect that feels good about minimizing multitasking is to really focus in one a task for its entirety. I can feel how I’m more productive if I spent 6-8 hours really focused on one subject the whole time. If I had to do two to three other things in the same time I’m not sure I’d have the satisfaction as well as the productivity.
Some of these thoughts may not be new to you as it’s clear many others have come to the same conclusions. However, for me it’s become more concise and will help me manage my time. One of the reasons that I’m choosing to blog about this is that I’ve struggled to get all my loose ends tied up recently. For example, I have several bits outstanding that I’ve wanted to finish lately such as expanding the YUI4Rails plugin, continuing the ActiveWarehouse redesign, finalizing my Radiant event calendar extension, setting up a wiki for my children’s school, getting taxes prepared as well as giving some overdue attention to my blog design. It’s almost like the weight of so many extra tasks are weighing me down. So I’ll try to keep only 2 of these tasks in the hopper at one point and just get through them as I can. Since almost all of these projects are self-imposed I’ll just let things flow naturally and see what happens. At least I don’t feel as guilty about not being able to do 6 things at once.
Posted by Marty Haught on Tuesday, February 26, 2008