A Case Against Multitasking

By; Heather Blanchard

A few weeks ago I had a multitasking disaster. I was inspired to make a 30-minute meal after watching a Jaime Oliver video on ‘Bon Appetit’ – fajitas with homemade salsa. In 30 minutes. Let me preface this by saying that I’m an average cook. I make simple, healthy meals with a few special dishes honed over the years. But I quickly realized in the flurry of chopping, mixing and cooking spread over four pans that I absolutely cannot multitask in the kitchen.

Though we live in a culture that consistently pushes us to do more, we CAN choose to be more focused, less stressed and more joyful by doing less.

“The shorter way to do many things is to only do one thing at a time.” – Mozart

Did you know multitasking was introduced in the 1960’s? It didn’t used to be a thing.

“Introduced in the 1960s, multitasking is an engineering strategy for making computers more efficient. Human beings are the slowest elements in a system.” ~ Ellen Ullman

Now anyone who’s a mom will tell you multitasking is often a necessity. And indeed the ability to take a work call with child in arms and make lunch all at once is sometimes a must when you’re in the trenches. That said, when your attention is spread thin over many things you actually take more time to get stuff done. A few months ago I wrote about this citing a neurological study about the benefits of doing less. We want to multi-task to fit more into our days, but studies actually show it’s almost impossible to multi-task as we can only hold 1-2 thoughts in our brain at a time. We’re more focused and productive by doing LESS. Less is more, right?

“While it turns out that we think we’re multitasking, we’re not. The brain is sequential tasking: we flit from one thought to the next very, very rapidly, giving us the illusion that what we’re doing is doing all these things at once.” ~ Daniel Levitin

So the next time you find yourself overwhelmed in a flurry

of multiple tasks, remember this great quote:

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” – Alexander Graham Bell

XOXO, Heather