Most people today recognize that multitasking, carrying out two or more independent tasks simultaneously is a myth.
We don't multitask. We really switch back and forth among two or more tasks, doing a little bit of one and then doing a little bit of another one and so forth.
A recent discovery, not at all. Consider the old days when manufactured items were made by hand, one at a time. Parts were brought into a workshop, and then one or more individuals would assemble the product.
A person might find themselves working with any of the products parts. It was slow and not very efficient. Then, with the automobile age, came the assembly line in which the workers stayed in one place as the automobile moved around the factory floor.
Each worker had one responsibility, namely, adding a particular part to the automobile as it came by their station.
This allowed individual workers to become very proficient at their tasks, and the entire assembly process became much smoother and quicker.
More cars could be assembled in a shorter period of time.
The old way of assembling products corresponds to multitasking.
One person having to switch among several different kinds of assembly tasks.
Imagine installing an engine one moment and then switching to putting on wheels the next.
With an assembly line, each person does just one kind of task at a time. No switching among different kinds of tasks. One worker installs engines. Another installs doors. A third installs tires, and so forth.
There's no task switching, which means the work goes smoothly. When you add up the time spent switching from one task to another, and take into consideration the cognitive burden. This place is on the person doing the tasks.
It's easy to see how the end result is less than ideal. So the next time you're feeling the pull of social media and cat videos while working, remember, multitasking is a myth.
And what you're really doing is taking valuable brainpower away from your work.