Why I Can't Multitask

I often include the ability to multitask in my professional and personal skills and attributes. With the massive layoffs occurring between 2008 and 2009, many employers expect multitasking to be a normal part of managing workloads. However, this way of thinking is severely flawed.

In my own experience, I have been told that when speaking with a work colleague on the phone, it seemed as though I was working on something else at the same time. It turns out that the information she was relaying to me was important enough to have warranted my full attention. I was embarrassed and vowed to pay better attention when someone is giving important information to me.

At home, I have tried to multitask while helping my son with his homework. That didn't work out the way I expected, either. While helping him with a reading comprehension exercise, I tried to read the newspaper. I half listened to him when he was asking me questions about what he had just read. When he said he was finished with the homework, I looked at the answers and some of them were incorrect (boy, did I feel horrible).

One of the worst things that can happen when multitasking had fortunately never happened to me. That scenario is having a car accident while speaking on your cell phone. Having worked for a cell phone company in the past, I was always well aware of the new laws that were being passed, town by town, to outlaw the act of holding a cell phone to your ear while driving.

Something I have learned from constantly multitasking is that it takes your brain a few seconds (sometimes up to a minute or more) to shift its focus from one activity to another. This type of brain drain results in lost time and less focus on both tasks that you are trying to accomplish.

I often long for a simpler time when less output was expected from us. In my mother's time, the moms stayed home with the kids and had what we called "coffee klatches". That's when all the other moms and kids would gather at one person's house in the afternoons after school.

The mothers had nowhere else they had to be, no one worked from home or had to check the cell phone or blackberry to see who was trying to reach them. The kids played together while the mothers drank coffee, had cake, participated in genuine conversations and took the time to nurture true friendships, without the aid of email or Facebook.

Since I stopped multitasking, I find that the people I communicate with find that I am more focused and they don't have to repeat as many things to me.