Monday 24 September 2018


Multitasking is scientifically impossible, so give up now

You make think you’re being more efficient but actually you're just attempting to do things quickly - and badly

Men may have been trying to deny it for years, but a scientific study has confirmed that women really are better at multitasking
Multitasking is nothing but a myth Photo: ALAMY

David Cameron made a misguided attempt to appeal to female voters this week, when he blamed his inability to multitask on his gender.

“I’m a man, I can’t do two things at once,” he told Heat magazine. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

But despite the prime minister's comments this is nothing to do with gender - multitasking is a scientific impossibility.

MRI scans show that when we attempt to do two things at once, our mind simply switches attention between the two. We focus on one task and then quickly refocus on a second task, but never successfuly perform both at the same time. The frontal lobe in our brain controls which act we prioritise, and our minds are unable to process two tasks simultaneously.

As the word “multitasking” was originally a computer science term that refers to machines, it’s hardly surprising that this is beyond the grasp of human minds.

Author Shirley Conran, who wrote the household manual Superwoman and famously coined the phrase “life’s too short to stuff a mushroom”, says the myth that woman are miraculously able to multitask is not a compliment to the fairer sex.

“Multitasking is an excuse to get wives to do more work,” says Conran. “It’s like saying, ‘Darling, you’re so good at doing a lot of things — so go do ‘em.’ This can refer to anything from ironing shirts, to cleaning the car.”

According to Conran, women are most likely to be attempting to multitask if they have children. "You’re left doing keep-your-head-above-water work and it basically gets in the way of serious creative and money-making work. Not only are women are given twice as much work, they’re also expected to do it all in half the time.”

Whether you are prime minister or a housewife, humans are limited to either writing an email or changing a baby, but it is time to give up the notion that they can do both at once.

Conran has the solution - “Do anything you can’t avoid and ignore the rest."

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