The effect of multitasking

If you want to be effective with your time, then give up multitasking, right now!

Plenty of people say they can do many things at once, and they’re really just fooling themselves. The problem with multitasking is the constant context switching, which in the long run makes everything take you longer.

Try the following exercise, proposed by Jon Cook, which I’ve translated and adapted from this post by Clarke Ching. It won’t take you more than 3 minutes.

Take a blank sheet of paper and draw 3 columns.

The idea is to carry out 3 projects, first by multitasking, and then sequentially.

The 3 projects are: (1) write the letters A-J in the first column, (2) write the numbers 1 to 10 in the second column, and (3) write the Roman numerals I-X in the third column.

The end result should be three columns filled in like this:

A | 1 | i  
B | 2 | ii  
C | 3 | iii

etc.

First do it in multitasking mode, that is, working row by row: write A, then 1, then i, in the first row, and keep going down, filling in each row, until all 3 projects are done. Time yourself.

Then do the sequential scenario: first write the letters A-J in the first column, then 1-10 in the second column, and I - X in the third column. Time yourself.

Timing it with a stopwatch makes the difference obvious, but even without one you’ll notice the impact of context switching on your performance.