Legos and Multitasking
The other day, I read a very interesting article on the failure of multitasking. This has lead me to look at how I behave and when I multitask, how badly I do it.
There are times when things go well, like washing the dishes or walking, and listening to a podcast at the same time. There are times when it's not so good, for instance grocery shopping and listening to podcasts (yes, I listen to many podcasts): I realized last Saturday, after losing my spot in a long podcast, that there were many things I could not remember hearing. I recently also found another occurrence of failing at multitasking: searching for Lego bricks.
Yesterday, I spent some time playing with Augustin, and my assigned task was to rebuild the engine from the cargo train set. Most of the time was spent searching for the correct brick, and I tried a couple times to search for two bricks at the same time, to save time. I then realized it requires a lot of concentration to keep both shapes in mind, and it's much easier to lose this concentration and let the mind wander, not finding anything. Searching for a single brick is much simpler and can be done in a much more relaxed way.
So the bottom line is that even when playing with Legos, I'm not too good at multitasking. I guess it's OK, I'll just have to remember it.
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I think multitasking is very overrated. I, too, listen to podcasts while biking to work and doing the dishes, but I'm reminded of a Zen saying that goes something like: "When I eat, I eat. When I sleep, I sleep." The 'Autumn of the Multitaskers' seems to confirm this ancient wisdom. Good article. I enjoyed reading your French post today on the lego train set too - my French is not very good, so I welcome the practice!
Thanks for the kind comment. I'm afraid I've not reached this level of Zen: I just love reading during breakfast, and I sometimes enjoy watching a movie when eating dinner.
Pour la Zénitude, tu verras, ça viendra avec les années passant.
Pour contribuer au débat, je pense qu'il s'agit en fait de la gestion de nos entrées / sorties sensorielles que nous ne développons pas assez. C'est bien connu qu'une sollicitation de notre ouie fait baisser notre vigilance visuelle ( un des pb du tel en conduisant).
Certains entrainements permettent de dégager des canaux indépendants pour chaque sens in et out. C'est particulièrement essentiel losqu'on conduit des opérations dangereuses (grande vitesse, mise en danger d'autrui ou de soi-même, ...).
En clair, un entrainement à une gestion multicanal de nos sens devrait améliorer notre capacité multitâche.
Je pense que je suis d'accord, c'est une question d'entraînement. Je vais d'ailleurs retourner m'entraîner avec Augustin ;-)