Jack of all Trades
Master of none
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There has been a lot of research on this multitasking thing recently. It turns out that we are shortchanging ourselves in many ways when we attempt to multitask. If our reason for multitasking is that we want to save time, we might want to rethink that. Research is pointing to the fact that we really can’t put out attention on more than one thing at a time, but, like the computer, we can flip from one thing to another rapidly. The cost, however, is that, unlike the computer, our brains need to have time to refocus on each task each time we turn to it. This refocusing time, actually costs us time in the long run. We may feel like we are getting more done, but the time wasted on refocusing really adds up in the course of a day. Not only does it take longer to complete tasks, but research is also saying that the results we get on all of our tasks are not nearly as good as they would be if we had focused on each of them exclusively.
We were talking to a friend of ours who is an airline pilot. My wife was going on about how good women are at multitasking. He looked her in the eye and said with all seriousness - there is no such think as multitasking. A guy responsible for 300 lives and his own should know.
“The cost, however, is that, unlike the computer, our brains need to have time to refocus on each task each time we turn to it.”
The author of the piece you cite is apparently blissfully unaware that computers also take time to ‘refocus’ on each task as they switch. Stacks and other low-level system registers have to be saved and restored so that each process can be handled seamlessly.
Unlike us, the computer doesn’t get confused and forget where it put that piece of paper just a minute ago.