0
  • Your cart is empty
Is Multitasking Making You Less Efficient? 
Industrial

Is Multitasking Making You Less Efficient? 

is-multitasking-making-you-less-efficient

Do you ever watch T.V. while you eat? Or listen to a podcast while driving to work? Maybe you listen to music while cooking, cleaning or studying? Maybe you find all of this efficient, because isn’t that what multitasking is? Efficient and productive, like your laptop running 10 tabs on Google at once, or your skincare targeting blackheads, dark spots, and fine lines all at once. 

The Cambridge Dictionary defines multitasking as “a person’s or product’s ability to do more than one thing at a time” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2026), which may be true for products, but what if multitasking looks very different in people? What if multitasking, as we know it, isn’t as efficient? And does this mean we should stop multitasking altogether? 

Most people think of multitasking as doing two things at once, but psychologically, it can happen in several ways. Think of multitasking as an umbrella term for different mechanisms. Sometimes we rapidly switch our attention from one task to another; that’s called task-switching. Sometimes we divide our attention between two activities that are happening at the same time; that’s called divided attention. 

What Does Multitasking Actually Look Like? 

Our brains are constantly receiving information from our surroundings, and it’s much more than we can consciously process at any given moment. Researchers at Caltech found that our sensory system gathers data from around us at a billion bits per second, while conscious information processing happens much more slowly; they found the speed of human thought is 10 bits per second (Dajose, 2024). In other words, the brain takes in much more information from its surroundings than what reaches conscious thought. Attention helps people select and prioritise some of this information over other information. 

For instance, when someone eats dinner while watching TV, they are doing two tasks at once. However, if the person suddenly bites into a chilli, attention quickly shifts to the meal. This is called divided attention. Divided attention doesn’t mean people can give two or more tasks their full attention simultaneously; instead, the brain’s capacity to process information at once is split between two tasks, and the amount of attention each task receives can change depending on the person’s goals (Wahn & Sinnett, 2019). 

Task-switching, on the other hand, is like the brain flicking back and forth between two tasks at high speed (American Psychological Association, 2006). For example, a person cooking might dice vegetables while waiting for the pasta water to boil. It may feel like multitasking, but the focus isn’t split evenly between dicing and keeping an eye on the stove. 

These are two different mechanisms, but both can feel like multitasking. 

Read More: Psychology Behind Attention Residue: The Hidden Cognitive Cost of Multitasking

The Cost of Multitasking 

Task-switching and divided attention both come at a cost that may make them less efficient than people like to believe. Of the two, task-switching has perhaps the clearest measurable cost: the cost of switching from one task to another. 

A recent study found that task-switching takes time and cognitive effort, so performance on both tasks slows down or becomes error-prone immediately after switching. For instance, if someone gets a message while writing a work email, they might quickly reply and return to their email. It seems like they simply paused for maybe a minute, but their brain has to reorient itself to the email- what was I writing? What was my point? What was I going to write next? This delay is task-switching cost. 

Another cost of task-switching is called task-set inertia. The work email and the message, say, from a friend are both similar tasks. But the way one talks or writes to their boss and to a friend is very different. When the attention shifts from the email to the message, the person’s mental rules change, which can also cause a slight delay when switching tasks, as the person may need a second to orient themselves back to writing a formal email after replying to a friend (Schmitz & J. Krämer, 2023). 

Divided attention, by contrast, has a different kind of cost: a cognitive cost that makes performance on one or both tasks suffer because the tasks compete for limited attentional resources. 

Research on divided attention has found that performance can slow or become less accurate when a person processes multiple tasks simultaneously, although the extent of interference depends on task demands. For example, a study asked participants to perform two visual tasks, first individually and then simultaneously. The results showed that performance and accuracy declined by as much as 200% when participants divided their attention between the two tasks, demonstrating that even tasks that can be performed at the same time are not necessarily processed as efficiently as when they are processed individually, because they compete for the same resources (Sun et al., 2015). 

Read More: Multitasking All Day? Here’s How It Impacts Your Brain

Is the Cost of Multitasking Unavoidable? 

While it might not be possible to eliminate the cost of multitasking, practice can help reduce it (Schmitz & J. Krämer, 2023). Watch a seasoned teacher at work; over time, they have enough practice that they effortlessly pivot between writing on the board, explaining a concept, and scanning the room for distractions.

Divided attention is a little different because which two tasks a person chooses to do together matters. Some tasks interfere with each other more than others, depending on what each task requires. 

A 2016 study found that the amount of interference between two tasks changes depending on how the tasks are combined together (Göthe et al., 2016). Most people can listen to music while folding laundry without giving either much thought, but try replacing the laundry with reading a book, and things get harder because now they are trying to follow spoken language while also making sense of written language. Each task is easy on its own, but combining them makes both difficult. 

How to Reduce the Cost of Multitasking? 

In today’s fast-paced world, we can’t always avoid multitasking. Sometimes multitasking is the only way to get work done on time. In those cases, how to ensure maximum efficiency and less erosion while multitasking? 

Crosstalk in the psychology of multitasking refers to interference that occurs when two tasks are paired. When two tasks rely on less-overlapping ways of processing information, they create less interference. For example, combining a visual task with an auditory task may create less interference than combining two tasks that rely heavily on visual processing. 

To take this one step further, the specific features of the tasks also matter, and the 2016 study examined how the type of information in a task and the response each task required affect how well two tasks can be paired (Göthe et al., 2016). For example, folding laundry requires visual processing and hand movements, while having a conversation requires listening and responding verbally, making these two tasks easier to do together because they require less overlap in their processing demands. 

These differences matter because this combination can mean less interference and, therefore, less crosstalk. The study also found that practice could further reduce the interference for task combinations that are already compatible, making those tasks even easier to perform together over time (Göthe et al., 2016). This suggests that task selection can change how efficient multitasking is. 

A useful rule of thumb, then, may be to give important or demanding tasks full attention whenever possible and avoid multitasking when the task requires concentrated processing. When multitasking is necessary, choosing tasks that place fewer overlapping demands on attention may help reduce interference and make it easier to perform both tasks together, with greater efficiency and fewer errors.

Read More: Benefits of Having Multitasking Skill

Conclusion 

The takeaway from this article is not to give up on multitasking. But to understand that it requires more effort and practice. 

What we casually call multitasking is actually either task-switching or divided attention, and both have their downsides. The solution is to be intentional about which tasks you pair together, and over time, practice can make multitasking easier. 

However, just because multitasking feels easy does not necessarily mean it’s efficient. We may be able to reply to personal messages during a meeting or listen to music while studying. But how well we actually process each activity and the information that comes with it depends on what each task demands from our attention. So the smarter approach to multitasking is to understand which tasks can coexist and when one task deserves our full focus. 

References +
...

Tags:

Share This Post:

Leave feedback about this

  • Rating

Related Post

workplace-stress-and-burnout-when-just-surviving-work-becomes-the-norm
Industrial

Workplace Stress and Burnout: When “Just Surviving Work”

September 26, 2026
the-psychology-of-workplace-politics-how-office-favouritism-affects-employees
Industrial

The Psychology of Workplace Politics: How Office Favouritism

September 22, 2026
what-makes-someone-a-g-o-a-t-the-psychology-behind-greatness
Industrial, Motivation

What Makes Someone a G.O.A.T.? The Psychology Behind

September 17, 2026
why-do-employees-really-leave-their-jobs
Industrial

Why Do Employees Really Leave Their Jobs?

September 8, 2026
frederick-taylor-efficiency-or-exploitation-at-work
Industrial

Frederick Taylor: Efficiency or Exploitation at Work?

September 4, 2026