The Science of Multitasking and Why You Should Doodle in Class

The Science of Multitasking and Why You Should Doodle in Class

by Lamin Thura -
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  • Psychologists have been warning us about Multitasking for decades. Some say it’s harmful to productivity and others say you can’t do it at all.
  • Distracted driving has nothing to do with whether you’re using your hands or not
  • Multitasking may have benefits. 
      1. One study showed that talking on the phone during long, monotonous drives might help keep drivers alert and awake.
      2. Other studies show that students sitting in a “boring” lecture may be better off doodling, because the combination of activities keeps their minds occupied.

  • Many people might call multitasking. 
  • Psychologists call rapid task-switching.
  • Your attention and consciousness only can focus on a little bit at a time, so it’s one task or the other.
  • There’s the cost that comes with task-switching. 
    1. A delay when you switch from one thing to another.
    2. A temporary drop in performance.
  • Switching tasks every few minutes, or every few seconds, the cognitive cost of switching from one task to the other interferes with performance.
  • You can think of it like losing money. 
  • Identifying the gender of a face, and then switching to identifying the facial expression, the switch only takes only about 200 milliseconds. 
  • But even this small cost can reduce productivity by 40 per cent if you try to study while watching a movi
  • Interruptions cost the United States an estimated US$650 billion a year. 
  • It takes 25 minutes, on average, to get back to task. Some people in the study never did.
  • It might even take you 68 seconds to remember what you were doing after a distracting phone call.
  • Interruptions and doing many things at once generally make us less productive.
  • When doing something that requires thinking, don’t do anything else.
  • To remain focused but at the same time cover a lot of ground, try structuring your day into half-hour chunks. Work on something different just about every half hour.
  • Multitasking isn’t all bad. If one of the tasks is really easy, or something you can do unconsciously, there is little downside. 
    1. Listening to music while you exercise makes you exercise more.
    2. Doodling during a boring lecture
    3. Listening to instrumental music while you program computers or study helps you focus.
    4. Even task switching isn’t all bad. It refreshes your mind.
    5. Many people deliberately switch tasks to “incubate” a problem they are stuck on.