Multitasking

Need to switch off? Try gardening.

I have realised exactly why I love gardening so much. It’s the one thing in my day that I do without thinking about the next job in hand. It’s the one important time of the day when I am not multitasking—trying to pay attention to numerous things simultaneously. I do anticipate my next jobs of course, but whilst I am mowing the lawn, that’s all I can do without being distracted and putting myself in danger. When that’s finished I can go on to do other things like sweeping the driveway systematically and safely going onto the next thing.
I could blame the computer for my lack of attention to one task. I can’t stay on a webpage for more than 5 seconds before getting impatient and if the page takes a while to load I will try to fit in reading e-mails and jumping onto the pages of DoneDeal to see what classic cars are for sale before clicking to see if the original page has loaded. Glancing at pages isn’t a problem until it is an instruction to do something. I waste hours trying to do things before eventually going back and reading the information properly. As my lad say when he sees my trying to set something up and getting impatient, “RTFM” (Read the f-ing manual) it makes sense I suppose –but it takes so long.

Feel good

Multitasking jobs like phoning whilst cooking or checking e-mails/facebook as the spuds go onto the boil, we claim to do so in the name of efficiency. Scientists now think the real attraction to multitasking has a lot to do with dopamine, a feel-good neurochemical released when we're stimulated by new things, even as simple as anticipating what is in the e-mail message. One scientist tells us that “We're all novelty junkies and multitasking, especially the electric kind, is a great way to get a fix.”

NCT

I tried to multitask last week putting my car though the NCT. I thought I could use the time spent sitting in the waiting room constructively by ‘thinking’ of solutions to my daily issues. A total waste of time as it turned out. I couldn’t concentrate on anything, partly because it was so cold, but mainly because the NCT man had to jump start the car in the checking bay. Not a good start to the test. It made me far too anxious to think about anything ‘constructive’, so I just got more stressed because I couldn’t think about the things that were stressing me. I sometimes think these small windows of spare time (like the ten minute wait for the lads to be picked up from school) are useful. But realistically I’d be better off just having a nap and in much the same way that gardening does, gives my brain a rest.

Just remember

There are times when multitasking can be valuable, especially if you are flying something. But recent evidence suggests that multitasking with unrelated activities—such as trying to write an article in my head as I am watching Coronation Street, or tying to wash the sink down when I’m brushing my teeth can impair short-term memory and interfere with mental processing. I am often seen as forgetful. I now see that it’s not that I forget things; I never really remembered it in the first place.
The medical boffins with impressive attention spans say that this is partially because most of what we call multitasking doesn't actually involve doing multiple things simultaneously; it involves rapidly switching between activities, a process that saps time and energy by requiring us to constantly refocus our attention. One doctor tells us that “When a conscious decision has to be made, our brains can generally do only one thing at a time," I can relate to that. Quick and creative thinking can be impeded and when we learn something while multitasking, we use an area of the brain called the striatum, which is activated when we learn new habits or skills, as opposed to the hippocampus, which is associated with forming conscious memories and is active when we're focused. The problem with habit-based learning is that it tends to be inflexible. This generally means that if everything goes the way it’s expect it to, all well and good, but if the routine is broken by something as simple as a phone call, getting back into the swing of things can be a bit awkward.

Have you ever really eaten an orange?

Here’s a test to see if you are trying too hard to multitask. When you eat an orange, do you put the next segment in your mouth before eating the next one? Next time you eat one, just take a look. A wise sage once told me that until you eat the separate segments individually you have never really eaten an orange. You are too busy anticipating the next piece, which is similar to multitasking.
Gardening is my one great release from trying to juggle my days ‘things to do’ It makes me realise that in the day the challenge is not to find stimulation but to say no to it, to take control of my rather short attention span and cultivate a different kind of richness in my life—one that comes from leaning on a spade and looking at the scenery. It sounds daft, but by doing this I tend to get a lot more done in the day.