I learned to read at 4 and did pretty much everything from then on with a book in my hand and I just didn’t want to stop in order to do other things that I found fun, so I did them all at once. Since nobody ever told me it was impossible I just went ahead and did it.

Actually, if you type from either dictation or a written draft or if you read sheet music as you play an instrument you are multitasking.

And mothers do it all the time. Making school lunches while quizzing the kids on spelling words, braiding hair while helping the kindergartener read her library book and changing the baby while teaching the toddler to sing a nursery rhyme are a few basic examples.

Yes, it works best when you can do at least one of the tasks on “autopilot” or when one task is almost totally passive. For example, planning a birthday party while driving a familiar route or reading and writing email while taking public transit.

That said, there are some tasks best done one at a time. Writing, real writing is one of those things. Tasks that require a majority of your attention should be done singly but I strongly believe that if you can walk and talk and chew gum at the same time you can multitask.

“Multitasking” above is in quotes because actually, it’s not so much multitasking as being compulsive about measuring how much time it takes to do something, and then figuring out whether there’s anything else that can be put on the burner, so to speak, while you’re doing it. Yes, this involves a slight degree of neuroticism that most people don’t have, but it’s how I get as much done during the day as I do.

I would ask the secretaries to take my phone calls for a set period of time, normally 2 hours, put a note on the door saying I was out until the end of that set time, and simply get on with important tasks uninterrupted. This made my working days much more prouctive, and much more pleasant.

Multitasking is by-product of limited attention span, which is a by-product of too much TV with it’s 5-minutes-tops segment durations!

They say women are better at multitasking. I would revise that say primary care-givers. You have to keep your concentraion on that boiling pot of water, and at the same time stop a fight, wipe a nose, find a shoe, and answer the phone. It only works if you have one primary task and the rest are either passive, or so routine, that you can do them almost without thinking.

Of course, that’s not actually multi-tasking, is it? But it does enable you to be more productive in the end, and a whole lot more competent. Traditional multitasking makes it difficult to ever finish anything, or to do it well.

Thanks for the review -

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Albert Einstein

Try solving calculus equations while talking to the boss. One activity will suffer, if not both. Some people are better at switching back and forth than others but the brain is only processing information from a single task at any particular moment.

Driving while talking on the phone? Even if the phone is hands free, the vehicle is not. Neither is brain free.