As I walk to my gym, which is a 15-minute walk, I see a lot people walking past me and everyone looks busy. Similarly, when I wait for my friend at the coffee shop, I observe lot of individuals being on the phone than having a conversation and I think about starting a new coffee place named: Coffee over cellphones. We all know how addicted we are to our phones these days, be it on a bus ride, or at the airport waiting, we are using the mobile for finding out some important information or choosing the picture as our WhatsApp display or it could be as simple to pass time. There is something or the else we keep doing and it has been a part of our lives. We realize yet ignore it.
In all situations, there is something new I perceived and that is, we love to multitask as individuals. We might not recognize this but do it often. I was not ready to accept it myself, so I analyzed my everyday routine. I was surprise to know that I want to do three different things at the same time, if not two, right from the start of the day. There has to be music playing while I research, some good audio book on the side when I cook, have conversations with friends and family while I walk. There have been moments when I walk, message and talk at the same time. I also realized the time I do not do this, I feel I am not making the most of the time. There are circumstances that I multitask for sure but for each one of them was shocking. What do you think about it? Being involved in one thing is better or two. Does it reduce our concentration and make the activity slower? Does it make us miss the enjoyment of doing one sole movement? Does our mind need rest without having to multi-task too much? Do we think that 24 hours in a day is short we have so much to do?
Even during our time on the laptop, if we start doing ten different activities all at once, how efficient do we get? In everyday work, when a chat window beeps, with an incoming message, we swing over it, and email notification when comes gets the most attention. The focus changes and is more of polling behavior. Do we actually forget the first task what we had planned when we are browsing for ten different information?
All of us would get our answers if we constantly remind ourselves and trace our actions in a day. Doing all the work at once is an art but it can be unhealthy too. There are studies, which say it contributes to lower achievement levels, and add, that we are task switching, and it is always better to finish one task before moving to another. While there are some jobs that can run parallel, multitasking come certainly for them, while one is playing a sport, running in basketball and examining where to pass could be one example.
Overall, one person should not do more than one thing at the same time; the quality of the job might deteriorate. So, multitask where you can, shift when you have to, and put your emphasis on the job that you are performing for the utmost results.
