Multitasking – Performing many tasks simultaneously!
- How to tackle such situations in which we are supposed to do many things at one time?
- Do you need some special kills?
- Agile mindset or some divine intervention?
I think all of these so that you can do justice to all the tasks at hand. If you are short-tempered or forever agitated or angry young man/ woman then God can only save you. Multi-tasking needs a lot of patience, a cool demeanour, and exceptional execution capabilities.
Now, you will say, I don’t have any of these, so can’t I multitask? Yes, you can! Everybody can but you need to acquire certain traits before attempting that, which is not difficult. As youngsters, you are quite adept at moulding yourself according to the situation and that is a big positive. Before attending to many tasks simultaneously, take a deep breath, plan in your head, put it on paper, assign the tasks and set a deadline. This is not at all difficult. & you are good to go!
In a typical office atmosphere, you are multitasking all the time, attending to 2-3 jobs simultaneously, isn’t it?
Like responding to emails while listening to a podcast, taking notes while listening to your boss’s lecture, completing paperwork while reading the fine print, or talking on the phone while greeting someone. Not only this, but talking to a fellow passenger while driving or watching the video and taking the tutorial.
Though multi-tasking may be stressful at times as the brain is wired to concentrate on one thing at a time, so the struggle is bigger to stretch your concentration towards many things. But if you did not acquire the skill and capability to multi-task, the results will be highly compromised like it will affect your quality of work, increase your stress levels, make you less productive, kill your focus, and may lead to memory-related issues.
As you are forever multitasking, trying to achieve too much too soon, you interact less with your friends, colleagues, and family members, which is not at all a healthy aspect.
We are wired to be mono-taskers, meaning that our brains can only focus on one task at a time, says neuropsychologist Cynthia Kubu, PhD. “When we think we’re multitasking, most often we aren’t really doing two things at once, but instead, we’re doing individual actions in rapid succession or task-switching,” she says.
It can also affect our ability to learn because, to learn, we need to be able to focus.
“The more we multitask, the less we accomplish because we slowly lose our ability to focus enough to learn,” Dr. Kubu says. “If we’re constantly attempting to multitask, we don’t practice tuning out the rest of the word to engage in deeper processing and learning.” One study found that college students who tried to multitask took longer to finish their tasks and had lower average grades.
Another issue that raises concerns is that an attempt to do many things at a time makes it harder to be mindful and truly present in the moment – and mindfulness comes with many benefits for our minds and our bodies. In fact, many therapies based on mindfulness can even help patients suffering from depression, anxiety, chronic pain, and other conditions.
Not everything is negative about multi-tasking, there are some positive attributes also like the more work you can accomplish during your day, the more productive you are. It reduces procrastination. Multitasking helps people feel more accomplished because they can complete more than one task at a time. This feeling of productivity increases motivation and encourages people to keep working on their tasks.
Multitasking creates a greater demand for cognitive resources, such as attention and working memory. Our brain activates more resources to meet those increased demands. Once our brain achieves a higher level of activation, it can use that extra energy in different ways because of cognitive flexibility.
So, if you attempt multi-tasking, you should evaluate the pros and cons and prepare yourself mentally and physically for the grind. In today’s times when the atmosphere is fiercely competitive and challenges are plenty, your ability to multitask is a boon. But doing it too often may cause health and well-being-related issues.
Watch out!
