Now that the 2024 presidential election is over… OK. Enough of that.
Let’s get down to work… and work… and work. Or, can we? Can you? Presumably the concept has always been around but in recent decades the idea of “multi-tasking” has assumed a new role in the workplace, in the home and in society in general.
But is it a good thing? Like the election campaign just passed, viewpoints abound from across all spectrums. Here, the old adage may be right: ask 100 different people, get 100 different answers.
The National Center for Biotechnical Information covers a lot of ground on the subject – from all perspectives. The website, CareerTrend, extolls its benefits. The University of Southern California makes a case against it.
Proponents claim that multi-tasking can increase productivity and efficiency while enhancing skills development. Detractors point to reduced quality and increased stress. Others are more focused on the scientific and psychological impacts while still others are more locked in on how the rapid development of technology has increased the emphasis on productivity and multi-tasking. CareerTrend points out that more and more job descriptions are actually requiring multi-tasking as a job requirement.
At the end of the day, not surprisingly, it all comes down to the individual. Can some people successfully pull it off? There is evidence for that. Can it hurt productivity and increase stress? Guess what. There is evidence for that too. Is it more popular in some cultures and among some populations and less in others? Yes, again.
We’ll leave it up to you. After all, we’ve got other things to do.
“When one has much to put in them, a day has a hundred pockets.”
— Friedrich Nietzche, German classical scholar, philosopher and critic
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