the myth of multi-tasking

Most of us think we can multi-task and actually get more done in the process. The reality is that we don't. If I'm watching TV and surfing the web or reading a magazine, I'm not paying enough attention to either activity. I miss a piece of dialog or a quick visual reference because I'm not giving the TV my full attention. Or I have to re-read a paragraph several times because I keep interrupting myself to look up at the TV.

I'm bumping an older post, but wanted to point out a Coding Horror post on context switching and the myths of productivity through multi-tasking. Atwood references Gerald Weinberg, Joel Spolsky and Kathy Sierra and comes to the conclusion that multi-tasking leads you to do more things less well. Spolsky is spot on with his description of the content a programmer keeps in their head while working on a project and the productivity and quality gains you can achieve by letting us dive deep and stay under for a while, rather than having us switch projects all day long. As Sierra points out, we all *think* we can multi-task and get more out of our time, but that is due to what Atwood calls the "occupational hazard of optimism". I think optimism is a requirement for those of us who create working software from mostly thin air, but obviously anything good can be taken too far.

My daughter learned that lesson last night, in fact. We were having a night alone, as my lovely wife was out with friends. We decided to eat dinner in the living room, watch a movie and have popcorn *and* rootbeer floats. The Spawn requested three scoops of ice cream and the whole can of rootbeer. I gave her three chunks (less than scoops) of ice cream but that reduction wasn't enough to avoid the tummy ache. She moaned and groaned a bit and reluctantly agreed that she should have stuck with two scoops of ice cream ;-) I told her that this is where the saying "too much of a good thing" came from, and she understood completely (although she'll probably forget the lesson at some point in the near future).

So we're too optimistic about what we can accomplish through multi-tasking and it leads us to think less deeply and less thoroughly about what we are doing. I mean, most of us are too optimistic about what we can do with a single task at a time. The lesson? If you don't mind the productivity loss (i.e., watching crap TV while surfing or reading email might be acceptable), go for it. However, if you really need to get quality work done, turn off some of the inputs and focus on a single task long enough to get it all in your head and make some real productivity gains.