Is Multitasking Beneficial to Your Work Ethic?
Charles Albert
You’ve probably heard of multitasking or maybe you've been guilty of multitasking yourself. Take for example, a couple homework assignments. I bet there’s points in time where you think that your work will be done faster if you choose to tackle 2 assignments at once. You may think that it’s helpful but in reality it really isn’t and there’s evidence to prove that multitasking is not beneficial in any way to your work ethic.
Some people claim that they are adept at multitasking and claim they have a skill for it which is not true. A study at Stanford University found out that heavy multitaskers were actually worse at multitasking than those who like to do things one at a time. Multitasking is very distracting and it reduces competency because your brain is designed to work on things one at a time, and when you try to do multiple things at once, your brain lacks the ability to do it coherently
Multitasking literally slows your brain down when you try to do it, it is called “task switch cost”, which is the negative effect that comes from switching from task to task. It happens because the increased mental demand that is related to going from one task to another causes us to slow down. Changing our focus also keeps us from relying on our brain’s “autopilot” which frees up more brain power, but switching from one task to another makes us slow down considerably.
You also tend to make more mistakes when you multitask. A study showed multiple things that happen when you multitask, that being minor spelling errors when typing (thank god for autocorrect), more mistakes in your homework causing you to do it over again, and adults are more likely to make mistakes when driving, and students also have lower GPAs.
Now, there is a way to be efficient at working without multitasking. You can delegate your tasks to take specific amounts of time that way you complete them in a set amount of time and there would be no need to even think about multitasking. You can also give yourself breaks in between work so that way you can recollect yourself. A common workplace task that helps with this is checking email. Studies have shown that the average professional spends about 23 percent of their day emailing.
So next time you think about multitasking, think about the trade-offs that come with multitasking, and the opportunity cost of wasting that time, especially now that you know the advantages and disadvantages of multitasking.
Works Cited
Bradberry, Travis. “Multitasking Damages Your Brain And Career, New Studies Suggest.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 20 Jan. 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2014/10/08/multitasking-damages-your-brain-and-career-new-studies-suggest/?sh=5c74d3dd56ee.
Cherry, Kendra. “Cognitive and Productive Costs of Multitasking.” Verywell Mind, www.verywellmind.com/multitasking-2795003.
“To Multitask or Not to Multitask: USC Online.” USC MAPP Online, 12 Mar. 2020, appliedpsychologydegree.usc.edu/blog/to-multitask-or-not-to-multitask/.
I now know not to multitask, and I am going to try breaking up my work to make it easier on me. Good reliable source, straight to the point.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that Multitasking is something that can benefit you. it teaches you how to kill two birds with one stone. However, I do agree that multitasking does have it's flaws as well. Multitasking can mean you are not putting 100% effort into each task you have. Depending on how you look at multitasking, I do know it is not the most efficient way of getting work done. As you said in your blog, "Multitasking literally slows your brain down when you try to do it." I can very much relate to this as I have a job that encourages you to multitask, all I feel when I multitask is stress, anxiety, anger. It makes me upset that they can't have another person simply help me or do the task entirely. When you think these thoughts when you multitask it can absolutely destroy your 100% effort in the task you are finishing. I do agree that there are certain assignments you should not multitask, and others that you could manage. For example at a job when you take orders and make drinks, this is not difficult to do efficiently if you have practice at it, however multitasking, two presentations at once, or multitasking when you have a summative for example is not a good way of multitasking. Multitasking has a ton of opportunity costs as well, if you multitask you are potentially costing the best work you can put in for the task. To conclude I agree with multitasking can be a good and bad thing, I agree that you have to know when to multitask and when not to multitask. The Opportunity Cost are too high at times, and you are trading in that 100% effort into the assignment and getting in return a potentially rushed assignment.
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of a study on multitasking I saw a while ago on a show I watched, and while I don't remember the exact details, it turned out that people who thought they could multitask, could not. This supports your point that multitasking is not beneficial further. I found it interesting that there is an actual term for the time it takes for your brain to switch tasks, and the comparison to opportunity cost connected it to economics very well.
ReplyDeleteGreat job Charles. I really like this blog post. You did a good job giving information about the negatives of multitasking, while backing it up with reliable sources. You also did a good job by giving information on how to improve work ethic, while still giving statistics about the topic. You were straight to the point in your writing and used good sources. Good job.
ReplyDeleteI think their are ways to efficiently multitask, but it can hard when productivity do two this at once to the best of your ability whether it’s something for work, school or just day to day life. Things tend do be not your best when your attention is trying to focus on multiple things. Do you spend more time trying to multitask than you would’ve just focusing on one project at a time and then once completed moving on to the next one. Is it really worth it?
ReplyDeleteI think that multitasking is something that everyone does. I do it. So this blog post was very beneficial. It was good to know even Stanford did a study on it and they realized that it is less productive to multitask than it is to delegate your work. I acknowledge that I do these things and I need to take time for my time but also to discretely separate time for work and for me. It will give me a more nonchalant feeling when I am taking time for me. This will help me unify my work more when I am doing it. It will help me lay down the framework to everything that I need to do instead of mushing it all together.
ReplyDeleteThis was some surprising information! I assumed that multitasking was a way to avoid opportunity cost, as you would not have to choose between two different ways to spend your time at once. The fact that multitasking significantly degrades the quality of your work was shocking and important to recognize. I still think that multitasking may still have a place in schedules, if you are willing to make the trade off. If the tasks don’t require a lot of precision or accuracy or one task doesn’t require 100% of your attention, one could reasonably make the decision to multitask. Data I would be interested to see is what tasks suffer the most from multitasking, or if any task specifically could be multitasked safely. I would also be interested to learn if the quality of the work that is lost is equivalent to the opportunity cost that would’ve been lost if the tasks were just done on their own.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think it is really interesting how when trying to be more productive and trying to get two things done at the same time, it actually hurts you in the long run. I also think that it is interesting how you tend to make more mistakes and get more distracted when trying to multitask. I never thought about when you are multitasking your brain goes on “autopilot”. I agree on how you can multitask better but something that could also help would be studying with plants in your working environment. They have proven to help your motivation and your productivity, plants also relieve your anxiety.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea that multitasking can actually be more harmful and less efficient. I think the idea of multitasking is very desirable to people because they think they are completing multiple tasks in the time that it would take them to complete one. As you said, the tasks are usually completed with less focus and detail. On top of this, speaking from experience, I feel that when I attempt to multitask, it sometimes takes me longer than it would if I would just do the tasks separately and they are not done to the same ability. Also, multitasking has proven to take focus away from one of the tasks through texting and driving. People who text and drive may think they have equal focus on their phone and the road, but in reality they are not fully attentive to both situations.
ReplyDeleteIt’s interesting to me that doing more than one thing at a time actually causes mistakes and your brain to slow down. I used to always think that multitasking was helping me get my work done and better too. I always listen to music or call a friend when doing homework or projects, and it never seemed to make things worse, but after reading this post, I realized that my minor mistakes that I’d make here and there could be from my multitasking. With all these difficult college classes on my hands this year, I won’t be to multitask anymore.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes this blog interesting is how you used multitasking and incorporated economic terms along with it instead of talking about an economic topic. It surprised me how people claimed to be “ multitaskers” are actually worse at multitasking than a normal person. I also had no idea that the opportunity cost was actually making your brain slower and having more mistakes in whatever your multitasking. It would be interesting to know if there is a long term cost with multitasking like damaging your brain. Or making it harder to process ideas and thoughts farther down the road.
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting how there is no evidence supporting multitasking, however, I do agree with the idea that multitasking can be harmful towards one's work ethic and overall productivity. Personally, I like to work on a task one at a time. I try to avoid multitasking as much as possible. Though, when I do see myself multitasking, I find that the quality of work I produce is not as proficient as when I would focus particularity on a task. Like you mentioned, the value of breaks in between work on tasks can be highly beneficial as I can relate to trying to accomplish a lot with a small incriminate of time. One aspect that you have brought to my attention is the difference in mistakes that people make when multitasking compared to focusing on one assignment, worksheet, presentation, etc,. So, people have a tendency to make more work for themselves than previously. Overall great job!
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree that some types of multitasking are not beneficial, there are some types that help me personally study better. Multitasking is a very loose word —a lot of things can be seen as multitasking: talking and driving, texting and walking, listening to music and reading. Some of them are very harmful to productivity. Personally I can never listen to music when I read because the noise is too much of a distraction. On the other hand, I always listen to music when I complete homework for my chemistry and math classes. It helps me focus and block outside noises. But I know when I’ll try to do membean and complete my math homework and I’ll forget about membean and the time runs out. So in that sense, I can definitely see how multitasking is not good for productivity.
ReplyDeleteMultitasking has always been an interesting topic as I’ve always believed that it can be helpful in many ways, but you have started to change my mind. It is crazy how much multitasking can degrade the quality of work someone can do and how much it slows down your brain. I could tell you are very against multitasking but one thing I am curious about is whether multitasking is worth doing in certain situations? I feel like for tasks that don’t need a whole lot of brain power you can do two things at once.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the fact that multitasking is more harmful than it is beneficial. It seems like it would be faster, but in practice when you are working on two different tasks you will lose focus of what task you are working on and eventually they will start combining work. As you said it would be more effective if you were to work on each piece of homework or work separately.
ReplyDeleteMultitasking is definitely something that I am guilty of doing. I always felt as if multitasking helped me, but last year is when my productivity plummeted because of the amount of work I had to get done and how long it took me to finish the assignments. Even keeping multiple tabs open can make my productivity go down, because I want to check email, other assignments, or even just switch the song I’m listening to. Just going through each assignment individually has helped me tremendously this year. I also believe there are some instances where you must multitask. For example when you’re driving on the road. Making sure to watch everything around you all the while controlling the vehicle. Just have to make sure the phone is put away because of how the brain slows down to switch tasks.
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ReplyDeleteI personally don’t multitask to do homework or any other tasks, unless I absolutely need to. I agree with what you said about how multitasking is bad because our brains are designed to focus on one thing at a time, because when you’re learning, researching, or studying two different topics at one time your brain can get things mixed up and it’s easier for you to forget about that information because one second you’re focused on one topic, and then the next you’re focused on another one and it just messes with your brain. Although, I understand why people multitask because when people look at it, they think that if they do two things at once, it will take less time to complete, which can be true at some points, but most of the time it takes longer because you almost have to relearn or just remember what you’re learning about after learning about another topic. People look at the opportunity costs and think, if I do two tasks at once, it will take less time, but when they’re actually doing it, they realize that it is harder than just doing one task at a time, because when you’re doing one task your brain is focused on only that and there’s no distractions where you’re thinking about one topic while learning about another topic so you don’t forget about it.
ReplyDeleteIn the past I would always multitask and I never thought about it slowing my brain down because it never came across my mind due to not getting terrible grades so I thought I was doing good. It's weird to think that people who are multitaskers are actually really bad at multitasking.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you say in your blog. I've been a multitasker for a while until I realized how pointless it is to be one. You waste more time then actually achieving anything and it's real a challenge to tune out distractions when doing two things at once. Sure, sometimes you can actually get your work done quicker, but usually you do poorer on one or both tasks. Overall, the Opportunity cost of making more mistakes is not worth it at all and I rather just work one at a time on a task one than juggling with both.
ReplyDeleteI agree that multitasking is not as efficient as staying on one thing. I have had many experiences where I start some work and after a few minutes I start to get more work done quickly if I stay on the same sobject for that time making me much more productive. Multitasking is normally not productive as oposed to staying to one thing but if you know what you're doing very well then switching tasks becomes less and less of a cost because your brain already know each topic so well that there really becomes no negatives. There are some examples of this in life like on a game show where one person know a lot about the topics and kept switching topics on themselves and the contestants because he knew the topics much better then the other players and the downfall of switching topics hurt the other players much more then it did him. But this is a very specific example and you would need to know the topics really well to do this efficiently.
ReplyDeleteI try to multitask way too often when doing homework because there are always something I would rather be doing, this then contributes to taking longer on my homework and going to bed late. This something I’ve been trying to not do and this gives me so much more motivation to do so! Now knowing that there is a better, more efficient, way to get through a task, I might try that to get through things quicker so I can have more time for the other things i want to do.
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