One of the reasons that I love working from home is that I am able to choose when I work, and under what circumstances. I choose to work at night, after my boys go to bed. The house is quiet, and I have time to think and to concentrate on my work. You see, I only like working when I can focus on my work and nothing but my work. I am not a multitasker.
Many people sing the praises of multitasking, shouting loudly from the rooftops (okay, maybe just on Facebook) about how productive they are being while doing this, that, and the other thing all at the same time. Not me. I prefer to focus on one thing at a time. If I don’t, I feel like I am just sort of half doing each of the things that I am multitasking. Not only that, but I end up making mistakes and having to spend additional time going back and redoing things.
I have often wondered whether I was the only one who has issues with multitasking, both in theory and in practice. Today, I read a great article by Joe Robinson on the Entrepreneur Magazine website that helped me to feel less alone in my single minded pursuit of doing one thing at a time. Robinson’s article mentioned a study by David Meyer, a scientist at the University of Michigan, which debunks the myth that multitaskers get more done faster.
It turns out that our brains can not actually perform multiple, cognitively complex tasks (like speaking and writing) at the same time. What actually happens when you are talking on the phone while you are writing is that you are rapidly switching back and forth between the two tasks. The end result is that completing each task can take more than twice as long, depending upon the nature of the tasks that you are trying to perform simultaneously.