Rands In Repose: I Don't Multitask

I multitask, in fact I'm completely capable of doing two seperate things at once without a problem. Although they have to be different tasks. It's psychologically proven that you can't do two things at once using the same area of your brain, and this does impede performance. Example: You're seriously crippled if you try to draw a tree when you're being told to imagine a cat. You can, however, draw a tree easily when you're told to count to 15 bajillion because Math has its own processing area to imagination. In fact, some people can learn ways around things like being told to count while reading a book as they'll count visually instead of verbally and this uses different imagination/processing centres (for more information see: Baddeley's Model of Working Memory).

Today I was plastering a wall (you know the thing people used to do to walls to make them look pretty before they invented drywall) and the entire time my mind was in a completely different world to my body. So much so, that the entire time I was coming up with plot ideas for my writing (which have now been written up), and when I wasn't doing that my mind somehow ressurected the Ewok song from Episode VI; I can tell you, singing the Ewok song for an hour is seriously harmful to your brain.

The thing is, this happens to me daily at work. The entire time I'm working, my mind is barely on the job because 95% of it is merely repeating actions I've done before. Essentially it's just a complex version of riding a bike, usually with wires and screws and electricity or power tools, but pretty much like riding a bike.

> “Attending quite strategically, distributing their attention between toy play and viewing so that they were looking at what for them were the most informative parts of the program. This strategy was so effective that the children could gain no more from increased attention.”

I do this regularly. In fact, right now I have an episode of Stargate Atlantis running in the background and I just zone in and out at the good parts as I've seen it before. I believe I just called YC my toy... hmm.