For subscribers
Multitasking is not the answer to your feelings of ‘overwhelm’
Research shows the human brain cannot cope with doing too much at once, so don’t take that meeting while you dog-walk.
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Our brains are primarily wired to do one thing at a time. Even walking and talking starts to get tricky when we get old.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: PEXELS
Camilla Cavendish
Follow topic:
An arresting claim has dropped into my inbox. A quarter of Brits, a new survey says, are sending e-mails from the loo because they are so pressed for time. “Relaxing is a thing of the past,” wails the press release, which says that a third of respondents are continuing to work on their phones in the evening – “while watching their TV programmes”. Ah.
With “overwhelm” a feature of modern life, reports such as this imply that harassed workers are forced to multitask to keep on top of ballooning demands. But when 13 per cent of respondents admit to having done a weekly online shopping during a business meeting, I wonder what’s happened to Saturday – and to their boss. Have we reached peak procrastination, in which meetings are now a performative adjunct to real life – walking the dog and cleaning the house, which respondents to this survey had done while on work calls?
