Multitasking comes into our lives when a lot of things fall on us. Everyone does this - children eat and watch TV (or play on the iPad) at the same time, adults walk around the city at the same time and look at something on their smartphone. We pride ourselves on our ability to multitask, because that way we add more value to employers and households. But this is wrong!
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Think back to your last multitasking job and answer the question, “Did I actually do more with the same quality”? That's it.
Our love of getting everything done in one time slot shows that we strive to be productive. But multitasking is definitely not the best way to do it.
But here we have a very serious enemy - our brain. When we do several routine, boring operations at once, he rewards us with the release of the "hormone of joy" dopamine. It causes very pleasant sensations, and we want to experience them again and again. This is why multitasking is so hard to get rid of. And it would be worth it.
More doesn't mean better
Why? After all, each of us knows from childhood that the more things you do at the same time, the better. But scientific research refutes this notion. Scientists are sure that our brain is simply not designed to focus on several things at the same time.
In other words, if you have to focus on two things at once right now, you will never be able to fully control both. All your brain can do in such a situation is switch between objects very quickly and give you the illusion that you are 100% both there and there.
In this mode of operation, you cannot be as efficient as when performing only one task. As a result, mistakes (because the brain must focus again after switching to the next task, and this does not happen immediately) and a feeling of stress due to the fact that you constantly need to switch between tasks. Memory suffers - and, of course, the quality of work. Yes, you can get more done by the end of the day thanks to multitasking. But what about quality? Have you had time to properly think about what you are doing?
If you want to work well, then you should give up multitasking in favor of working on only one task at a time.
Single-tasking produces better results
Research shows that working on only one task improves the ability to control attention, memory and reduces stress- after all, in "single-taskers" the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is responsible for concentration of attention, decision making, forecasting, emotions, will, mental activity in general and behavior, better controls the more ancient limbic system of the brain (responsible for the basic autonomic and somatic reactions that we cannot control).
How to become a "single-tasker"?
Here are some simple tips:
- Turn off unnecessary ones!
- Open only one tab in your browser. How often do you open 15-20 tabs at a time? Everyone does this – and it’s completely in vain, because in the futile pursuit of multitasking we lose concentration, and therefore we do our work worse than we could. So remember - only one tab, and only one task.
- Start small. If you switch to "single-tasking" abruptly, your brain will get scared - and may well bury a good undertaking. Don't rush, take it step by step. Eat in silence today, without TV or PC. Tomorrow, when you come to the cafe, turn off your phone. Fight multitasking at this pace and you will quickly notice that your life has become more meaningful.
- Set your priorities. We all have hundreds if not thousands of things that deserve our attention. But let's be realistic. It is better to single out the main ones from among them and do them well than to do everything at once in a hurry on the principle of "it will do."
Modern life imposes more and more responsibility on a person, at the same time, taking up more and more of his resources. In this regard, many people have to do several things at the same time, otherwise there will be no time.
Is it possible to productively do several things at the same time? As practice shows, many people live in such a rhythm: they check mail, talk, and solve problems at the same time. Plus, they snack.
This mode of life is called multitasking - solving many problems in one period of time.
Working on one problem at a time is called single-tasking.
It seems that multitasking is far superior to single-tasking in terms of its effectiveness. Truth?
Unfortunately, everything is exactly the opposite.
Whatever the case does not include multitasking, in addition to purely physical participation, such a mode of work always seriously increases the requirements for both the human brain and the emotional sphere as a whole.
At the same time, that with multitasking, that with single-tasking, a person cannot go beyond his own resources.
But if, with single-tasking, all the forces of the body, roughly speaking, are aimed at solving one specific problem with maximum efficiency, then with multitasking, these same forces are scattered in many areas.
In this regard, if a person does many things at the same time (even if it is a set of extremely simple actions), then this negatively affects the productivity of his work:
- It is difficult for the brain to sort and filter out information;
- Human memory in such conditions works with low efficiency;
- Thought processes, due to the dispersion of attention, are violated;
- The very concentration of attention falls;
- It is difficult for a person to bring the work started to the end;
- The percentage of creative, creative solutions is low.
It turns out that even the introduction of a simple action at the same time as the main work can seriously reduce the likelihood of a quick positive result.
What happens if you only do one thing at a time
Sequential execution of tasks, unlike multitasking, is an efficient type of work.
With single-tasking, all mental processes are subordinated to only one thing: to achieve the completion of the work as accurately, efficiently and quickly as possible.
At the same time, the brain of such a person retains concentration for much longer and is able to work without loss of speed and efficiency. And the creative abilities of a person are subordinated to one task - the search for the most correct solution to the problem.
Remember how often we do something while listening to our favorite songs, talking to someone on distant topics, or occasionally glancing at the TV screen.
By learning to avoid this (avoid even this kind of multitasking), we can take our productivity and efficiency to a whole new level.
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According to legend, Julius Caesar had an unusual gift - he could do several things at the same time and, most importantly, without compromising quality. In today's world of corporate deadlines, it sometimes seems like bosses want to nurture a little copy of the great emperor in almost every employee, forcing them to perform several tasks at the same time. This phenomenon is called multitasking or multitasking and is actively studied by specialists. The main question of research is whether a mountain of urgent cases really ensures human efficiency? Let's figure it out.
Multitasking: a scientific approach
The ability or inability of people to do several things at the same time simply haunts scientists. In one of the recent studies, nevertheless, it was possible to establish a curious fact - in fact, none of us can simultaneously be engaged in two jobs or projects at the same time. And what we used to call multitasking is just the ability of the brain to quickly switch between tasks and generate solutions for each of them. So, the story about Julius Caesar is more of a fiction than the true truth.
In addition, scientists have shown that those employees who boast of the ability to successfully perform several tasks at the same time, demonstrate much worse results, compared with personnel who were lucky enough to perform one specific task. Like it or not, but our brain is imprisoned for processing only one operation, but at 100%. If it is forced to switch, then the performance drops accordingly. You, most likely, have noticed that you cannot talk on the phone equally successfully and at the same time perceive the information that you read on the monitor screen. You have to switch, answer inappropriately, or reread the sentence several times.
Successful switching between tasks is possible, but it takes about 15 minutes. If you think that after a smoke break with colleagues you can immediately return to filling out a report, forget about this idea.
There is another interesting fact that we cannot fail to mention. Research shows that successful task switching is possible, but it takes about 15 minutes for a person to do it. In other words, if you think that after a smoke break with colleagues you can immediately return to filling out a report, forget about this venture. You will most likely need time to get back on track. But it is worth noting that this theory does not apply to music. It can be listened to without interruption from production.
Multitasking: A Practical Approach
In general, scientists believe that all people who deal with multitasking in one way or another can be divided into three conditional groups.
First group- these are those of us who are forced to do everything at once in a professional activity, since high performance is the only way to not lose a position and rise above.
Second group- these people, quite possibly, do not even suspect that they are dealing with multitasking. They can in the course of work, without completing it, rush to check mail or social networks. Familiar?
Third group– those who pride themselves on their ability to work with everything at once. But they don't think about the fact that by doing this they reduce their own productivity and possibly lose money.
Once again, multitasking is not a good idea. But, if for some reason it is impossible to avoid it, try using a few tricks that will make life much easier.
Plan. The talk about scheduling your day and day to day activities is as old as the world, but many of us still go with the flow and prefer to simply react to the events taking place here and now. This is fundamentally wrong. Having information about what needs to be done during the day, you will know what to prepare for. And do not forget to leave a reserve of time for force majeure (at least 20%).
Delegate. If you do not have time to do something on your own, do not be afraid to transfer this task. And the widespread myth that quality suffers from delegation has absolutely no basis. If you set the task correctly, describe it in detail, set intermediate control points, then you can count on a completely worthy result.
Focus. How many browser tabs do you have open right now? Five? Ten or more? It is worth leaving only one - the most important, without which you cannot do your job. Try to reduce the amount of information that you perceive per unit of time. The less you are distracted by interesting articles that are not relevant, the better results you will achieve.
Move around. Change jobs if possible. This principle works especially well for those who work remotely. Do not stay too long, be mobile, use all resources. This will help you relax, switch, but keep your attention and focus.
Stop. Yes, you read everything correctly. From time to time, doing several tasks in parallel, “hit the brake” and give yourself a break. At such moments, it is worth prioritizing tasks, relaxing and trying to switch. Try your best to avoid unnecessary stress and overwork. Even the most urgent things can be made to wait.
When this material was already almost ready, we stumbled upon an article that multitasking, in fact, is not always so bad. On the contrary, it makes us happier and gives us a sense of accomplishment and job satisfaction. Perhaps this is true. But each of us must decide for himself whether or not he should take on too much. The main thing is not to overdo it and keep a balance. Then everything becomes possible.
Canadian psychologists have studied the process by which the human brain solves two problems at the same time. And they found out that in fact the brain switches very quickly from one task to another, and does not solve them in parallel. At the same time, the speed of such switching can be increased by training.
The researchers used a tomograph to monitor brain activity and determined that the prefrontal cortex plays a key role in putting two things together at once. It cannot provide truly parallel actions, but it can sequentially solve two different tasks.
What they were doing?
A group of seven subjects were asked to solve two problems. In the first, by pressing one of the two buttons, it was necessary to sort the images that appeared on the screen. In the second, it was already necessary to sort the sounds - and not by pressing the button, but by saying the answer aloud.
Even at the beginning of the experiment, psychologists saw a natural picture. Individually, the subjects coped with any of the tasks quite quickly, but an attempt to solve both of them simultaneously led to a sharp deterioration in the results. Training for two weeks in solving both problems simultaneously significantly increased not only the speed of solving each problem separately, but also their simultaneous execution. Although, as further analysis of the results of the experiment showed, the brain could not become truly multitasking.
How exactly?
The fact that with the help of training it is possible to speed up the solution of two parallel tasks is in itself not a new fact, and therefore, from a scientific point of view, of little interest. Scientists were interested not only in the ability to learn how to solve several different tasks at the same time, but also in how the brain changes in the process of such training.
Scientists have suggested that multitasking can be achieved in several ways. For example, in the process of learning a certain task, the brain can switch from the prefrontal cortex to other structures: in this case, the subjects would do the sorting of pictures or sounds automatically, without conscious participation. A similar effect can be achieved by allocating separate groups of cells for the task, which are not occupied with anything else: a section of the cerebral cortex would be responsible for its task.
However, most of the possible explanations were recognized by scientists as untenable in the course of processing the results of the experiment. Multitasking actually turned out to be associated not with the emergence of separate specialized areas, but with the acceleration of the prefrontal cortex.
Is it possible to multitask?
The researchers, who described their experiment in the journal Neuron, were able to show that when the brain is doing two tasks at the same time, it constantly switches from one to the other. These switchings require a certain time, which can be reduced by training - however, not to an arbitrarily small amount. In addition, the success of training largely depends on the complexity of the task. Rene Marois, one of the researchers, noted that tasks that require complex logical operations are solved by parts of the brain that are not involved in solving simple tasks.
Finding out exactly how the human brain adapts to perform several tasks at once is important not only for understanding the principles of the brain as a whole. A driver talking on a cell phone or a machine operator who is distracted by a question finds himself in a similar situation. And air traffic controllers do have to constantly solve several problems at once, and a mistake can lead to disaster. If psychologists learn how the brain copes with such situations, it will be possible to develop recommendations for the risk group.
Simultaneously seven, unrelated.
In ancient Rome, gladiator fights were not just entertainment, they carried an important religious message. In fact, they were sacrifices to the gods. Therefore, those who did not go to fights were looked rather askance - approximately as in Russia they look askance at those who do not drink vodka :) Gaius Julius Caesar was just one of those who were not interested in gladiator fights. It is unlikely that he could not stand the sight of blood, but rather because after all the wars he had fought, gladiator fights looked the same as backyard football after the World Cup. However, as a "life consul" he was forced to attend the battles. Populism in those years was much cooler than it is now :) In order not to waste time, Caesar in his box dealt with correspondence.) So, when one of the close people reproached Caesar - how can he watch battles and write letters at the same time? - Gaius Julius invariably answered, without taking his eyes off the letter, that “Caesar can do not only two, but even three things at the same time - and watch battles, and write letters, and talk. "
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Gaius Julius Caesar - Ancient Roman statesman and politician, dictator, commander, writer. Gaius Julius Caesar was born in Subura, a suburb of Rome, located near the Forum, in a patrician family from the Julius family, which played a significant role in the history of Rome from ancient times. Before Caesar, the Julius family, despite their aristocratic origin, was not rich by the standards of the Roman nobility of that time. That is why, until Caesar himself, almost none of his relatives achieved much influence. After the death of Sulla, Caesar returned to Rome and joined the political struggle. Caesar lost both trials, but despite this, he gained fame as one of the best orators of Rome. In 65 BC, according to some conflicting accounts of his contemporaries, Caesar is involved in an unsuccessful plot to seize power. In 62 BC Julius Caesar sends a praetor. Caesar's Gallic proconsulship was a direct continuation of his activities in the previous 7-8 years, aimed at obtaining under his command a large military force that could allow him to claim power and, if necessary, balance the military influence of Pompey. The brilliant results of the first expeditions enormously raised Caesar's prestige in Rome; Gallic money maintained this prestige no less successfully. Senate opposition against the triumvirate, however, did not doze off, and Pompey in Rome experienced a number of unpleasant moments. For a long time of his political activity, Julius Caesar quite definitely realized to himself that one of the main evils that cause a serious illness in the Roman political system is the instability, impotence and purely urban character of the executive power, the selfish, narrow party and class nature of the power of the senate. From the first moments of his career, he openly and definitely struggled with both. The guiding idea of Caesar's foreign policy was the creation of a strong and integral state with natural, if possible, borders. Caesar pursued this idea in the north, and in the south, and in the east. In all of Caesar's reforming activities, two main ideas are clearly noted. One is the need to unite the Roman state into one whole, the need to smooth out the difference between the citizen-owner and the provincial slave, to smooth out the strife of nationalities; the other, closely related to the first, is the streamlining of the administration, close communication between the state and its subjects, the elimination of intermediaries, and a strong central authority. Caesar was killed on March 15, 44 BC. at a meeting of the Senate. When friends once advised the dictator to beware of enemies and surround himself with guards, Caesar replied: “It is better to die once than to constantly expect death.” A broad education, grammatical and literary, gave Caesar the opportunity, like most educated people of that time, to be active not only in politics, but also in literature. The literary activity of Caesar in his mature years was, however, for him not a goal, but a means of a purely political nature. According to the unanimous testimony of all ancient authors, Caesar was distinguished by sexual promiscuity: “he was the lover of many
military women, "including the wives of their comrades in the triumvirate - Tertulla, the wife of Crassus, and Mutsia, the wife of Pompey; they also claimed about his connection with the wife of his ally, the king of Mauritania, Bogud, Evnoia. Caesar was especially fond of Servilia, the sister of Cato the Younger and the mother of Brutus, which gave rise to the legend that Brutus was Caesar's own son (although Brutus was only 17-19 years younger than Caesar, the peak of the affair with Servilia falls on the end of the 60s). years, when Brutus was already entering adulthood.The personality of Caesar has always attracted the attention of researchers of ancient history, but assessments of his activities were different.The founder of one of the first scientific schools of studying Roman history, Barthold Niebuhr, reservedly assessed the activities of the dictator.In 1724, on behalf of Peter I F. Anokhin translated into Russian four books of Notes, but the translation was not published and was lost.
Caesar- one of the titles of the rulers of the Roman Empire. Descended from the cognomen of the Julius clan "Caesar", the bearer of which was a politician and commander of the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. BC. Gaius Julius Caesar. Gaius Julius Caesar was killed in 44 BC. In the III-IV centuries, the title "Caesar" was inextricably linked with the idea of co-government, when the senior ruler, who was assigned the title "August", shared power with the junior co-ruler - "Caesar".
