Is multitasking possible?
If I had the morning shift as an educator in my old job, two extra arms would not have been bad. Or better, four. First, I put on three kettles of tea water and distributed tea bags to six large pitchers. While the water was hot, I rattled off all 12 rooms of the day care center and pulled up the shutters everywhere. Back in the kitchen, I poured the first three jugs, filled the kettle again and cleaned the two washing machines from the day before. By the time the second load of water was hot, I chopped a dozen apples and distributed them in pods on the group rooms.
Then, as a rule, the bell rang and the first two or three children arrived before the regular opening hours. Her parents had made a special arrangement with the Board due to the personal work situation. OK. The kids clung to my heels like little ducklings, while I checked the supplies of toothpaste and toilet paper in the bathrooms and then brought the teapots to the group rooms. In between, quickly brushed a nose, comforted a stumbled child and a lost slipper sought. Then gradually my five colleagues and 45 more children came in. The real work could start. I felt rather after work.
When things got really bad, my direct colleague was ill and I alone with 16 children between the ages of two and four. Then my pedagogical activity was limited to mere damage limitation. Hups, I'm getting into a plea for more and better paid educators. I should come to the actual topic of this article: Multitasking. When thinking about this term, the memory of the daycare came like a wave over me, hence the somewhat long entry.
In most occupations, the employee is now expected to do as much as possible in the shortest possible time. Many of the resulting works overlap and do not tolerate any delay. While checking the emails, the phone rings and a colleague has a question. Before the morning meeting then must necessarily be picked out a file and the birthday card for Mr. A. is not finished yet. Pure stress, equally harmful to health and nerves. And above all, the more things you want to do at the same time, the more mistakes and inaccuracies creep in. Whether educator, office worker, housewife or manager? The multitasking trap lurks in every field of work. And very few people do not manage to fall into it.
The concept of multitasking comes from the computer world. There he describes the ability of an operating system to perform several (multi) tasks in parallel. This requirement for machines has been transferred to humans over time and is currently being critically reviewed by scientists. The question is: is a person capable of multitasking, or is it a myth?
I'll cut it short: No, the human brain is not designed for true multitasking. Real multitasking? In addition a short definition of terms: Real multitasking means the simultaneous execution of at least two complex tasks with different objectives. Example: Make a medical appointment on the phone and at the same time help the daughter with the math homework (I know, nobody does, this is just an illustration). The brain can not handle both and jumps at the same time? therefore permanently between the tasks back and forth. As a consequence, time expenditure and error frequency increase. It is different, for example, when driving a car: steering and shifting at the same time is not a problem, because both tasks have the same objective: to bring home the car, including passengers, as safely as possible. When driving without hands-free calling (other objective) is therefore not prohibited without reason.
People who are often in the situation of having to do several things at the same time perform better in multitasking test series than people who usually only have to pay attention to one activity. This means that the brain is still not capable of multitasking, but can be trained on the faster switching between the individual tasks. Although this ability is positive at first glance, the brain is in constant stress and fatigues faster.
How to avoid the multitasking trap (especially at work)? Here are some tips:
- Do not start a new job until the old one is complete
- Give as much attention as possible to each task
- On the PC: deactivate pop-ups, do not read emails in between, but work through them collectively
- If possible: turn off the phone (if you are not working in the call center)
- Set priorities and set the order of work according to their urgency
- Plan sufficient buffer time and only do a realistic workload
- Avoid interference
- Pay attention to sufficient relaxation breaks
That may sound trivial, but even if you only pay attention to some of these things, you will see a noticeable and measurable improvement in the quality of work.
Oh yes, even the myth that women dominate multitasking rather than men is just that: a myth. Here I finish now and will watch TV and eat chips? I can barely manage that at the same time. Buy now 
Better fix than done: brain work in the world of multitasking 22,99 ?
