What You Can (and Can’t) Multitask

In my previous post, I came to terms with the fact that 95% of us can’t multitask (hard blow). Instead, what we call multitasking is just rapidly toggling between tasks. That switching is costly for attention, quality, creativity, and energy. That’s why a chorus of experts is telling you emphatically not to do it. But cummonnn…it can’t be 100% awful, can it? Surely it can work sometimes?? How do you know what you can and can’t multitask?

Tasks that Aren’t Conducive to Multitasking

I won’t list the tasks that are sub-optimized by multitasking because it’s pretty much everything. Sure, you can count biking to work as both “commuting” and “exercising,” but beyond that, it’s a stretch.

I don’t need to be prescriptive here. I’ll talk about the relevant criteria, and you can assess just how harmful multitasking will be in a given situation and make your own informed choices.

Attention

Does the task require you to pay attention? Do you need to process it deeply enough to do something with it later? Do you need to remember what you’re exposed to? If so, it’s not a moment for multitasking. There are decades of evidence that multitasking splits your attention so that you only attend to one thing at a time. When you are paying less attention and processing the information less deeply, you won’t be able to retain it well. More recent research suggests that when you multitask, your brain sends information to the wrong spots, making retrieval difficult.

Quality and Accuracy

Next question: does the work you’re doing need to be done with high quality or accuracy? If so, disqualify it from the temptation of multitasking. There are myriad studies about the impact of split attention. Some equate multitasking to a 10-point drop in IQ; others cite 10% more errors or significantly lower accuracy.

Speed

Here’s the kicker. I bet you’re tempted to multitask because you feel like you don’t have the luxury of doing one thing at a time. Do you need to work quickly? If so, you’re fooling yourself by trying to multitask. Multitasking has high switching costs and causes your productivity to go down, not up.

Creativity

Things get interesting when we consider whether your job needs you to be creative. In the short term, multitasking might inhibit your creativity during task performance. Still, some interesting new research suggests that you can get a spillover effect whereby flurries of activity and multitasking help you with divergent thinking afterward. I wouldn’t jump to using this as an excuse for emailing in meetings, though.

Stress

Do you want to feel more or less stressed? Do you need to protect your energy, or can you expend it inefficiently? Do you want to feel more or less anxious? According to health professionals, multitasking temporarily increases stress, depression, and anxiety. It shows up in increased cortisol and adrenaline, creating brain fog. It also zaps your energy. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin argues that task-switching makes us feel tired more quickly and that snacking and caffeinating won’t help.

There you have it: a set of criteria you can use to determine how much you’ll pay for doubling up two or more tasks.

Tasks Where You Might Choose to Multi-task

There are a couple of common situations where you might consider multitasking. That’s not to say that doing two or more things at once won’t affect your performance; it’s a recognition that there might be times when you deliberately choose that degradation.

Multitasking in Meetings

Perhaps the most prevalent scenario for multitasking is meetings. Given that many of us spend up to half our work week in meetings, it’s unsurprising that we attempt to get things done simultaneously. The question is whether this is productive.

In an article in Forbes, Kevin Collins cites Microsoft research about multitasking in meetings, which shows that “around 15% of people said they believe multitasking makes them more productive.” Collins argues, based on sound research about the costs of task switching, that they are wrong.

But here’s the rub: The research on multitasking focuses on situations where your full attention is needed on each task. Most meetings are filled with information that is irrelevant to many people in attendance.

The question is how much information you need to hear, process, internalize, or act on in the meeting. The more you need to do something with the information, the more harmful multitasking gets.

And let’s take it to another level. It might not just be the information you need, for which you can rely on your peripheral hearing to pick up cues and tune back in. It also matters how much context, body language, and unspoken information you need. If you’re doing something else, you’re missing important stuff.

This quote from the Cao et al. paper sums it up beautifully. “Multitasking is at its most productive when workers understand that their own and others’ attention…is a spectrum about which they can make active meeting choices.”

But remember that the cost of multitasking goes beyond the loss of information; multitasking can create fatigue and signal disrespect, so proceed with caution.

Multitasking While Doing Simple Tasks

When I create a new keynote speech, I focus on the deep work of researching, generating ideas, and writing the talk. Once that heavy lifting is done, I spend considerable time surfing an online image source to pick just the right photo to accompany each slide. This is a time when I choose to multitask—not by doing work that will compete with my eyeballs but by listening to a podcast I want to check out.

In this case, I understand that toggling will mean it takes longer to find the images than if I had been ruthlessly focused. And I admit that I might miss some parts of the podcast or have a harder time retaining what I heard. I’m ok with that. Because neither task needs my full attention, some speed reduction or fidelity loss is just fine with me in service of a more pleasant experience.

I might do the same with tasks like deleting mailing list emails or bundling expense receipts with my invoices. There are likely several things you do in a week where some multitasking will be worth the trade-offs.

In Conclusion

With very, very few exceptions, attempting to multitask condemns you to costly toggling and task-switching and just isn’t worth it. You’ll work more slowly and less accurately and stress yourself out in the process. But occasionally, there might be times when a meeting doesn’t require your full attention or two tasks are simple enough that you do them well enough at the same time. You’re a grown-up; make the right choice for you.

Additional Resources

Productive Conflict Resources

How to Be More Productive at Work

From David Burkus, Why You Can’t Multi-Task (And When You Can)

 

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