Who Multitasks Best? Women, Of Course
But a new study says focusing on one task at a time is more productive.
Good question, because it is important to realize that there are different types of multitasking. We focused on the type that demands a rapid switch between multiple tasks. For example, imagine you are making a meal. You might be cutting vegetables and at the same time preparing an oven dish. You rapidly switch back and forth between the vegetables and the oven.
Another type of task switching we didn't focus on is performing two tasks simultaneously. For example, you play the piano and play different things with each hand. This is not what we focused on, though, because in daily life when we multitask, we typically switch rapidly between two tasks [as opposed to doing two simultaneously]—something humans find easier and