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auntblabby
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17 Mar 2010, 2:15 am

Brennan wrote:
I have a hard time wrapping my mind around what multitasking really involves. Sometimes I think people use the term incorrectly. In my view multitasking is the ability to say listen to music and write an essay and be able to focus on both things at the same time. I think I have over thought the whole multitasking thing.


good description, though it can be physical multitasking as well as mental multitasking. i knew somebody in the army who told me on a taxi drive in NYC his cab driver negotiated the busy streets and dodged jaywalking pedestrians and potholes, answered his squawkbox radio and still managed to engage his passenger in a lively philosophical conversation and crack jokes without missing a beat the whole time. THAT is multitasking in a nutshell.
i believe that folk with gifted-level intelligence [the top-2%'ers] can multitask natively, whereas the average schlubs like myself better not even think about trying it lest accidents happen which would result in the smarties being tarred with the same multitasking=dangerous brush, e.g., laws against cell-phone use in cars while driving.



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17 Mar 2010, 7:55 pm

I guess I'm the exception here. I am a master at multi-tasking at work. I'll frequently have 10 to 12 projects open on my desk and work them all at the same time. (and then I'll still open the file cabinets and write down notes and in 3 other job folders.) In fact, I get rather bored if I'm not multi-tasking. I need to keep the mind engaged or I fall apart. No, quality does not suffer, my quality audit scores at work have been 100% since they started auditing.

I can't not multi-task. Its just the way my brain works.



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17 Mar 2010, 9:58 pm

If listening to music and driving at the same time doesn't count, then no, I can't multi-task.


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Last edited by devark on 18 Mar 2010, 12:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

mechanicalgirl39
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18 Mar 2010, 12:39 pm

auntblabby wrote:
Brennan wrote:
I have a hard time wrapping my mind around what multitasking really involves. Sometimes I think people use the term incorrectly. In my view multitasking is the ability to say listen to music and write an essay and be able to focus on both things at the same time. I think I have over thought the whole multitasking thing.


good description, though it can be physical multitasking as well as mental multitasking. i knew somebody in the army who told me on a taxi drive in NYC his cab driver negotiated the busy streets and dodged jaywalking pedestrians and potholes, answered his squawkbox radio and still managed to engage his passenger in a lively philosophical conversation and crack jokes without missing a beat the whole time. THAT is multitasking in a nutshell.
i believe that folk with gifted-level intelligence [the top-2%'ers] can multitask natively, whereas the average schlubs like myself better not even think about trying it lest accidents happen which would result in the smarties being tarred with the same multitasking=dangerous brush, e.g., laws against cell-phone use in cars while driving.


Sorry to disappoint you, but I am in the top 2%, and I can't multitask to save my life :)

I had quite a funny episode a few nights ago, I was typing something for my mom and my cat happened to come up and nuzzle me, and I lost concentration and made a bunch of mistakes...:D


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auntblabby
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19 Mar 2010, 2:05 am

mechanicalgirl39 wrote:
Sorry to disappoint you, but I am in the top 2%, and I can't multitask to save my life :)


this reminds me that no IQ test i ever took, ever tested multitasking ability. so maybe a person could test well but still not be good at multitasking. this said, the smart folk i have known all could multitask without missing a beat, effortlessly without even thinking about it. my older sister who thinks circles around me, is one of the lucky multitasking ones.

mechanicalgirl39 wrote:
I had quite a funny episode a few nights ago, I was typing something for my mom and my cat happened to come up and nuzzle me, and I lost concentration and made a bunch of mistakes...:D


it would be illuminating if you remembered what those mistakes were. i have been known to converse with another person and then get distracted by something else, and have the conversation go on a sudden tangent away from the original subject and towards the object which distracted me, e.g., "i made sure the contract language stipulated that the vendor's cat keeps rubbing against my legs to get me to feed it."



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19 Mar 2010, 2:33 am

I can play drums, if that is multi-tasking, then yes I can.

I argue that I am faking it though, because I am simply running through a checklist in my head, right right > left > kick right > right right > left > kick right kick > right right > left > kick right.

Yet if you give me a book and ask me to watch a pot on the stove, until I actually hear the pot boil over, or half-ass pay attention to the book, it will stress me endlessly.



auntblabby
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19 Mar 2010, 6:31 am

justMax wrote:
I can play drums, if that is multi-tasking, then yes I can.
I argue that I am faking it though, because I am simply running through a checklist in my head, right right > left > kick right > right right > left > kick right kick > right right > left > kick right.
Yet if you give me a book and ask me to watch a pot on the stove, until I actually hear the pot boil over, or half-ass pay attention to the book, it will stress me endlessly.


i guess multitasking can fall into limited areas "savant"-like, where there is no "stress." [not calling you a savant unless you want me to] there is some confusion regarding the terms "multitasking" versus "multithreading" [rapid sequencing through temporal functions] though to my mind they practically meld into one another. your description of your mental functions while drumming make me think technically "multithreading" but to any outsider watching you beat the drums one would most immediately think "multitasking." IOW the former is done so fast that it closely resembles the latter. i hope that made sense.



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19 Mar 2010, 7:10 am

Pardon me, I can't focus on reading the whole thread but I think am writing in a good place. I am terrible at multitasking but there is one weird thing I can do. I can think like I had two brains, I mean I can think about two things at a time. I can even think in two different languages at a time. I've noticed it in high school and it is developing although I don't like it because sometimes I focus on one of the "threads" in my mind less although sometimes I focus properly on both. I can speak and think about different things. It happens mostly at church, where I pray aloud and am thinking about something else and am more focused on what am thinking, I don't make any mistakes in the prayers.
Do you also have it? Or could it be some brain damage? Please, help me, I think there must be something wrong with me.



auntblabby
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19 Mar 2010, 8:26 am

Agnieszka wrote:
I can even think in two different languages at a time. I've noticed it in high school and it is developing although I don't like it because sometimes I focus on one of the "threads" in my mind less although sometimes I focus properly on both. I can speak and think about different things. Do you also have it? Or could it be some brain damage? Please, help me, I think there must be something wrong with me.


there is nothing obvious wrong with you that i wouldn't want for myself. in fact I am a bit envious of your abilities. lots of folk who are bilingual have the facility you described. it seems that having cultural/linguistic fluency in 2 or more languages makes LOTS of extra neural connections which in can allow seemingly parallel activity over a wide variety of cognitive functions, almost like having 2 brains in one. i have long believed that multilingual people plainly are more intelligent than monolingual folk in general. the brains of many intellectually gifted folk can multithread [sequence rapidly through temporal tasks] so rapidly that it resembles true multitasking. army psychologist lewis terman wrote a book ["The Gifted"] where he touched upon this ability of the cognitive elite to do more things more quickly with less effort.
so i would say to you, be thankful for your abilities.



Agnieszka
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19 Mar 2010, 8:45 am

Thanks, auntblabby! I felt overhelmed with this and never thought it could be something good. Sometimes I was a little scared, that something happened to my brain and one day I'd go crazy with too many threads on my mind... Thanks for recomending the book to me. It is hard to get it but now I know what to search for. Thanks again! :)



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19 Mar 2010, 8:48 am

Unless I'm mistaken, research shows that people don't actually multitask. They just continually switch between tasks. The reason it makes everything slower is because you've given yourself so much more to keep up with.

If you avoid the multi-tasking, and do your tasks one at a time, things actually get done quicker.

(Unless new research says otherwise. I'm not entirely sure...)



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19 Mar 2010, 8:53 am

I don't know if I'm any good at it, but I do it all the time. I can't stand not getting enough stimuli at once, though they have to be under my ocntrol, I watch tv, listen to music and read something at once. I'm only knowingly busy with one thing, but unconsciously I do pick up a lot about the other 2 things. When I only do one thing at once, I get annoyed, bored, ... unless it really, really interests me.

Even when I used to be in class, I tried listening to music, reading a book or another course while trying to pay attention. Though I must admit that I can hardly ever truly focus on one thing. My doctor thinks I might be a bit addicted to stimuli, I guess I should consider myself as lucky to ony have such an addiction. :p


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Mosaicofminds
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21 Mar 2010, 2:23 am

"i believe that folk with gifted-level intelligence [the top-2%'ers] can multitask natively, whereas the average schlubs like myself better not even think about trying it lest accidents happen which would result in the smarties being tarred with the same multitasking=dangerous brush, e.g., laws against cell-phone use in cars while driving."

I don't think this is true. I have known people with IQ 150+ (top less than 1 percent) who are terrible multitaskers, although this may be because they hyperfocus. When they are writing something, whether it's an email or a paper, if you try to talk to them they literally won't hear you. Or they might suddenly realize that it's 2 in the afternoon and they haven't eaten since they sat down at their computer at 9 am. One hopes they remember to go to the bathroom. So I don't think intelligence has a lot to do with the ability to pay attention or get things done...those top 2%ers aren't always so different from the rest of us. :)



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21 Mar 2010, 2:52 am

I can't even brush my hair while blow drying it.
My mum says she has to multitask in her job. She's on the phone, reading off a computer screen while listening to people correct her. I'd meltdown every 2 minutes in that environment.


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auntblabby
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21 Mar 2010, 3:53 am

CerebralDreamer wrote:
Unless I'm mistaken, research shows that people don't actually multitask. They just continually switch between tasks. The reason it makes everything slower is because you've given yourself so much more to keep up with.


multithreading technically is correct, it is like what a modern computer does. many tasks done separately and sequentially in bits with rapid switching. when this is elevated to a high art, it resembles multitasking, in that various tasks are done in quick sequence that resembles simultanaity. but i still stand by my true multitasking description of expert traps-drummers and theatrical pipe organists after seeing them in action and watching how they so many things NOT sequentially BUT simultaneously, without even thinking about it as though some automatic process were happening.



auntblabby
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21 Mar 2010, 3:57 am

Mosaicofminds wrote:
I don't think this is true. I have known people with IQ 150+ (top less than 1 percent) who are terrible multitaskers, although this may be because they hyperfocus. So I don't think intelligence has a lot to do with the ability to pay attention or get things done...those top 2%ers aren't always so different from the rest of us. :)


an enlightening book on the subject is lewis terman's "The Gifted."