Multitasking

“Hello?” Bob shouts into the telephone receiver while typing furiously on his computer’s keyboard. “Hello? Is this the job superintendent?” Hello?

“What is going on?” you ask calmly as Charles darts past with a chain of P-Lam samples in one hand and a coffee cup in the other.

“Bob is trying to solve a construction issue and finish the spec for the Austin project.” Charles calls breathlessly over his shoulder. “And, he’s tabulating the figures for the Mayfield school proposal that’s due tomorrow! And, I’m…

“Hello? Hello?” Bob shouts, again interrupting Charles in mid-sentence, while still pounding madly on his computer’s keyboard. “You’re breaking up! I need to talk with the job superintendent?” Hello?

“Well, I can help with some of this!” You declare. “And take a little of the stress off!”

“No! No!” Bob shouts at you or maybe into the phone. “I’ve got it under control. Where’s my coffee? Oh, thanks. Hello? Hello? Is this the job superintendent?” Hello? Go on. Yes, I know you’ve got fifty things to do too. Charles, where the heck is that…? Hello?”

Charles darts past again now headed for his own desk.

“Don’t you guys think we’re taking this multitasking thing a little too seriously?” You ask, mostly of yourself.

In response to increasing labor costs and corporate short-term bottom line driven business plans, the buzzword, “multitasking” was coined during the final decades of the Twentieth Century to describe the managerial concept of assigning more work to fewer people. Essentially, multitasking is just what it sounds like – one person doing a number of tasks at the same time. Simple!

Why, just balance a budget spreadsheet, listen in on a conference call, wolf down a working lunch, and monitor the stock market report scrolling across the bottom of your computer monitor when you can also be answering an intern’s question about a window flashing detail?

Suddenly, someone is speaking to you. Is someone standing behind you? No, it’s someone else in the conference call. Wait, what was that last number you just entered into the calculator? Oh, you spilled your soup all over the spreadsheet, Did Tesla just announced a stock split? Did your brain just lock up? You can’t recall what you just did or what the question was, and you hear someone on the speakerphone repeating your name over and over again.

A growing body of scientific research is revealing that there are limits in the human ability to accomplish multiple tasks simultaneously. A key to the current findings is that the human brain can only assimilate so much information before if begins a subconscious effort to simplify and paraphrase that information. Research is also showing that, like any other human talents, different people have different levels of ability to transfer back and forth between tasks. Known as, “executive control” this ability, in all people, is limited proportionally to the number of difficult tasks attempted concurrently.

Even as early as 2001, the American Psychological Association journal published findings that identified a significant fault in the concept of multitasking. The APA reported that there was significant time lost by test subjects at the moment when they switched focus from one chore to another. These, “time costs” were shown to increase with the complexity of the tasks at hand. Researchers also found that, when compared with tests where some subjects were allowed to complete individual chores without distraction, 20 to 40 percent of the total time allotted was wasted by the subjects attempted to cycle their efforts of concentration between the different more complicated tasks.

Also, in the fall of 2003, the National Institute of Mental Health published similar conclusions. The NIMH found that managing multiple mental tasks simultaneously reduced the total brainpower available for the individual tasks alone. And, in a study conducted by the Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, it was found that test subjects, who were assigned multiple tasks in varying degrees of difficulty over a sustained period of time, suffered from short term memory loss, gaps in attentiveness and an increase in physical stress. Those symptoms were also found to be exacerbated by coupling multitask assignments with restrictive deadlines.

Although the mind and body can be trained to handle multiple difficult issues such as: a batter who must identify the spin of a pitched ball, estimate its probable movement and resulting path in relationship to the strike zone and then decide on the most opportune moment to swing the bat. Or in the case of a jet pilot who must make decisions about the aircraft’s mechanical condition, attitude and trajectory though the sky while determining what and when control systems should to activate while judging the aircraft’s relationship to a runway or other air traffic in the vicinity. However, as dramatic as all of these tasks appear in written form, many become subconscious with constant practice and all lead to the same respective goal: hit the ball or land the plane or accomplish the task.

However, when resolution is needed in situations where multiple problems with vastly different procedures, parameters, goals and timetables are attempted simultaneously that the human mind falters. The majority of the studies to date have determined that the most difficult tasks for human beings to attempt simultaneously are those that combine the investigation and assessment of information, mathematical calculations, creativity efforts such as writing or drawing, as well as auditory processing, like listening and comprehending technical information, under restricted time constraints. In essence, all of the things that architects normally do.

“Hello?” Bob shouts into the telephone receiver while beating furiously on his computer’s keyboard. “Hello? You’re breaking up again!”

“You know,” Charles comments as he darts into the room again. “My Uncle Fred was the best ‘multitasker’ that I ever knew.”

“Who?” you ask, as you try to grab Charles by the shirtsleeve, but miss, “your Uncle Fred who lost his arm during the war?”

“Yippers,” Charles responds as he begins searching through the project manuals on Bob’s bookshelf. “Uncle Fred had his own business for years and he always had a million things going.”

“What kind of business was your uncle in?” You ask.

Charles stops working with the spec books and turns to look at you, “Uncle Fred was in the wallpaper business.”

Originally published in Columns, April 2004; Updated February 2025