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Multitasking Drains Your Brain's Energy Reserves, Researchers Say (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes an article from Quartz:
When we attempt to multitask, we don't actually do more than one activity at once, but quickly switch between them. And this switching is exhausting. It uses up oxygenated glucose in the brain, running down the same fuel that's needed to focus on a task...
"That switching comes with a biological cost that ends up making us feel tired much more quickly than if we sustain attention on one thing," says Daniel Levitin, professor of behavioral neuroscience at McGill University. "People eat more, they take more caffeine. Often what you really need in that moment isn't caffeine, but just a break. If you aren't taking regular breaks every couple of hours, your brain won't benefit from that extra cup of coffee."
Anyone have any anecdotal experiences that back this up?
"That switching comes with a biological cost that ends up making us feel tired much more quickly than if we sustain attention on one thing," says Daniel Levitin, professor of behavioral neuroscience at McGill University. "People eat more, they take more caffeine. Often what you really need in that moment isn't caffeine, but just a break. If you aren't taking regular breaks every couple of hours, your brain won't benefit from that extra cup of coffee."
Anyone have any anecdotal experiences that back this up?
I find it depends on who's driving the switching. If I'm doing it at my own pace it's much less annoying than when some asshat is wittering or interrupting.
Maybe because I switch as I'm coming out of "the zone" anyway?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
dividing 100% into multiple parts and adding them together gives you back no more than 100%. Film at 11.
Anyone have any anecdotal experiences that back this up?
Once I tried to get first and second post at the same time and I just collapsed in exhaustion.
I was going to comment but am busy doing a few other things. Ugh, need a nap now.
Gimme a break gimme a break break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar... http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics...
Notifications from apps ranging from email, slack, Facebook, Twitter.
Just turn them off. You're back in control. My 'out of office' says 'back on Monday phone if important'
Do you need extra brain-memory, try this upgrade guide...
... You don't need those childhood memories anyway.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
I agree. Trying to switch between tasks has a huge overhead and the effort to regain focus is noticeable for me. Given the chance, I much prefer bringing all my concentration to bear on a single albeit complex task to doing simultaneous but simple tasks.
One could argue that if the task does not merit your full attention, perhaps it is not worth doing at the moment? How many workplace errors and even injuries occur because someone wasn't properly focused on what they were doing? No one questions the danger of texting while driving, yet there is a workplace expectation of multitasking in the name of productivity.
Multitasking is awesome for computers, not so much for humans. Work smarter not harder.
because taking a break essentially entails switching attention..
What is totally useless is to do several things in parallel. The old story of Napoleon being able to dictate a letter, read a book, have a conversation and lead a battle all at the same time is simply bullshit. Had he done so, he would had sucked at all of them, in parallel.
You know it's time for the next revolution when your rulers' names end with roman numerals.
Yes. I'll get back to you after a break.
This is absolutely my experience. Running a small business, have to joggle issues, people, client problems, new opportunities etc., and then of-course other non-business related things. Doing it in more than one time zone as well. Yes, it is draining, tiring, hard to do. I like running the business, I like building the services and products, I like dealing with every day interesting questions. I do very often feel overwhelmed, often procrastinate solving any one of the problems present because there is such a large number of them and they keep accumulating, sometimes it feels like a never ending stream of blows coming all at once that I just end up not dealing with any of them but then stay up very late at night because things still have to be solved.
This, mixed with a constant stream of client issues, personnel issues, unexpected expenses, clients not paying their bills, having to deal with paying all of my bills on time, etc., it is difficult to see sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel. So taking one day a week off from the never ending work, going to gym, wasting some time on this site is something that keeps me somewhat sane I suppose :)
You can't handle the truth.
Context switching has a cost - film at 11.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I have worked primarily as chief engineer or electrician on commercial fishing vessels, mostly in the Bering Sea. Generally it's 12 hour shifts, and the boat is in continuous 24 hour operation. Typically, systems that require simultaneous engineer attention include fishing hydraulics, power generation, processing equipment, propulsion, & refrigeration. When I first come to a new boat, I have these issues when I'm switching between these things. As time goes on, I develop a mental model of the specifics of the entire vessel, and instead of switching between different things, I'm paying attention to one, more complex thing. When that happens I lose this penalty somewhat. The problem comes when returning from vacation, because I want to enjoy the loss of penalty, but the model may no longer be complete or may be intermixed with models of other vessels.
>"Anyone have any anecdotal experiences that back this up?"
Yes. I find over multitasking exhausting in every way... mentally and physically. Often it can't be avoided, but usually it is due to artificial deadlines and unrealistic expectations by others. It makes a job so less rewarding- it seems like nothing really ever gets done and you can't be proud of the results. Sometimes it is better to just block things and get some stuff done from start to finish and move to the next task. And there is an inherent reward for having finished something and done it right than juggling 6 things for 10+ times as long.
Because in your definition if i am taking a shit and reading a magazine at the same time, i am switching between them?
No, you're not.
I used to have epilepsy, and one thing it taught me was what automatisms are and how many I had. Have you ever had to stop at the store on the way home from work, but you spaced out and drove home before you realized it? That's because you were using an automatism to drive, while your thalamus had your attention focused on something else, like crap on the radio.
Basically a seizure (the kind I had) was a blue screen crash; I would convulse on the floor for a few minutes, and then my brain would have to reboot entirely from scratch. (That was a process that was 90% complete within an hour, but didn't really finish for several days- sort of like how Windows boots up "right away" but then ignores you for a couple minutes.) It wasn't like waking up- this was a very smooth process with no well-defined boundaries, from complete unconsciousness, to a dim and foggy awareness, then to a period of general ditziness and impaired memory, and finally to fully awake and normal. (Afterwards I would write shitty code for a couple days until recovery was complete.) But during the early stages my initial behavior was being completely driven by automatisms.
The first thing I would do after a seizure (or this is what people told me) would be to crawl around, or stand up, start swatting at anything that came near me, etc. Stuff an amphibian could do. Then I would start running around in random directions, descending stairwells without falling, etc. As the minutes went by the behavior would get more complicated. My wife told me stories about how I unzipped my pants and pissed against the wall like it was a urinal. Once I picked up her toothbrush, made a clumsy effort to brush my teeth with it, then dropped it, kneeled down on the floor to look for it, but didn't recognize it. So I picked up the bathroom scale, as if that was what I was looking for. I looked at the scale in my hands, couldn't figure out what to do with it, and set it down on a table before continuing to run around the house constantly looking for "something". She once found me outside completely naked, trying to read the electric meter. People at work said I'd get off the floor, sit at their desks while unconscious, and start typing crap into their keyboards. I once tried to make coffee at 3 AM but couldn't figure out what to put in the filter. When I was 20 I even drove a car for a couple miles through a busy neighborhood while unconscious. I didn't get in an accident, but I did miss a turn. I didn't realize what was going on until I was getting puzzled by an unfamiliar intersection while waiting at a red light.
Once something feels "second nature", your brain has developed an automatism for doing it, which requires less interaction with the thalamus, freeing you to focus your attention on something else. But doing two unpracticed tasks at once requires constant process switching.
Anyone have any anecdotal experiences that back this up?
Yes. For the past decade, since I graduated and joined the work force, I have told my boss that interruptions during deep problem solving is already a major issue, but if the interruption requires any amount of thinking, I will quickly burn out and may only get about 2 productive hours in. Other people I work with claim to not have this issue, but it's easy to see their mistakes increase quickly. I'm very introspective and consciously monitor my thinking. I can easily tell my ability to think has been affected, I can sense it in the first task switch. I know when to stop and take a break, while others keep on trucking and pumping out mistake after mistake.
In the end, I put in much less effort while getting out more value because I know when to stop. Extra effort beyond one's limit creates negative value at an alarming rate."I put in 12 hour days! Derp!" "Good job, now excuse me while I spend the next week cleaning up your mess from the past 3 days of binge coding. BTW, I noticed you have 40 commits with over 8,000 lines of code added and fewer than 20 lines of code deleted. I cleaned up your code and removed 2,000 LOC and added 500. And you have a lot of empty catch blocks." Mind you, these are not bad programmers, they just don't think strait when they put in too many hours. I guess the code technically works, so the upper management sees it as a win until it goes pear-shaped. And if you wait for the world to be on fire, you'll always be under the gun to create bandaids to "fix" technical debt, which just increases the technical debt more.
"My wife says men are unable to do two things at the same time, but that's not true. Whatever I'm doing, I have to be listening to her at the same time."
Thinking you know something and actually knowing something with evidence to back it up are totally different things. There are plenty of things people feel to be true which are found to be wrong once given a closer look.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
According to this paper, bilinguals have an advantage when it comes to task switching. Also, according to this article, true bilinguals, aka "people who learned both languages in childhood, know them well and use them frequently throughout life", are the best at task switching.
Anyone have any anecdotal experiences that back this up?
Quit interrupting my daily dose of Slashdot to ask me for examples of things from my life. Interruptions like these make me tired. And cranky.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Yes, but i don't think taking a shit falls into those kind of automatisms. Taking a shit is part of your digestive system even if at then end of it, so like breathing it is one of those tasks automated by your brain. Sure you can hold it in, but eventually your brain will force you to "expurge"
There are plenty of things that people know to be true that are not.
Walking down the hallway to a bathroom and sitting down on a toilet doesn't require much concentration at all. That was one of the most common automatisms I had.
You should be wary of sample sizes of 1, but you asked for anecdotal evidence so here goes: I have multi-tasked various daily activities for the last 27 years, and I have found that taking a total break of roughly 8 hours every day helps. I come out of this (usually night-time) break period more refreshed than before and I find I don't need as much caffeine after the break.
What do I do with this break? Not only do I shut my eyes but I also lie down in a darkened room. I even lower my heart rate and activate specially developed wave modes in my brain that offer a combination of mental restfulness and reinforcing the learning that has taken place during the day. The really cool thing is that even new-born babies know this one weird trick to increase your energy levels - cosmetic surgeons everywhere don't want you to know this trick to look younger and feel more energetic!
But hey, I'm just some guy on the internet - you should take my anecdotal advice that such breaks are better than caffeine with a pinch of salt.
I knew I needed to stop reading Slashdot and finish my PhD when I started to miss articles by Bennett Haselton.
How much you can/should juggle really depends on what you're doing, as well. If I've got various processes that require 5 minutes of work and 1h of execution (e.g. they take a long time to "run"), I'm not being very productive by take 1h5m to do task A, then task B, etc.
The more likely scenario though is that task A requires periodic attendance in 10-15 minute intervals. Usually I can juggle at least a few of these at a time and pop between them, accomplishing several full tasks within 1-2 hours instead of a single task every 1h.
Also known as compiling :-)
Can I just buy a box of oxygenated glucose at whole foods and mix it in my bloody Mary?
And how do you know that?
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Everybody knows that!