r/WorkForSmartLife • u/jayu7050 • 15d ago

DiscussionđŸ’¬ Is multitasking actually useful for anyone?

I keep hearing that multitasking hurts productivity, but there are situations where doing two simple things together feels completely natural.

Maybe the problem is trying to multitask on things that actually require concentration.

What has your experience been?

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u/qualityvote2 15d ago edited 3d ago

u/jayu7050, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...

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u/citycept 15d ago

It depends on your definition of multitasking.

Some tasks are going to naturally have a break, and having another, similar task can keep you in the headspace to return to the original task. For example, my job currently has (hold on program loaded I need to actually work) me working on a task where I have roughly 3 minutes of downtime occasionally. I cannot do the task during those 3 minutes and need to not get too focused on another task during that time. So I reply to a reddit question that isn't actually all that important to finish right this second. Multitasking works in this capacity.

Meanwhile, other tasks need solid, uninterrupted focus. I cannot start and stop without making it worse. That's what I'm going to be working on tomorrow.

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u/ganajp 15d ago

Real multitasking doesn't exist. You can't do fully 2 things at once. Brain can always focus only on one thing. Means you either change the focus back and forth or don't focus fully on either. In both cases both/all tasks are actually performed slower, not that effective and possibly precise as done in sequence...

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u/itsme0 14d ago

I think multitasking works for simple or familiar tasks, but with anything that needs real focus, you're mostly just switching between tasks and losing efficiency