Everything is about conscious awareness and focus, especially as reality is a virtual experience.
Multitasking is focusing your conscious awareness in more than one place at a time. It is a form of remote viewing where you split your conscious awareness.
Being psychic my whole life, the way I multitask is in part focusing on the physical (left) brain while at the same time, paying attention to 'the other side' (right brain) for messages. I do this automatically, which means that my brain is in touch with many levels at the same time and generally focuses best on one thing at a time in the physical that involves little effort, something that is done automatically.
As good as people say they are at multitasking, I believe performance drops off, no matter how much mental energy is expended for two or more additional tasks done simultaneously. The mind gets tired. having a photographic memory helps.
You must also understand that your soul is only partially connected to physical consciousness. Though you wake up from dream time, part of your consciousness returning to the physical body, the adventures you were having in dream time continue. So in truth the soul is always multitasking
Multitasking may refer to any of the following:
Research suggests that the prefrontal cortex mediates a person's ability to depart temporarily from a main task in order to explore alternative tasks and then return back to where they left off. Performing several separate tasks consecutively is known as multitasking. This complex mental juggling comes at a price, however. Researchers measured a 20-30% loss in the total time it took for subjects to complete two separate problems, when they switched back and forth mentally between the tasks. A specific type of multitasking behavior that plays a key role in human cognition is called branching, and depends on the front-most region of the brain, the anterior prefrontal cortex, an area especially well-developed in humans compared to other primates. Studies suggest that humans may be the only species capable of performing branching, which involves keeping a goal in mind over time (working memory), while at the same time being able to change focus among tasks (attention resource allocation). - Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, August 2001
Multitasking; switching back and forth between activities of varying complexity, has become both a workplace and household catchphrase of the millennium. Unlike generations before, 24/7 is the lifestyle for us - like using the hand phone while driving and loosing control of the car, increased anxiety, a sense of feeling overwhelmed by various demands, physical-mental burnout and depression.
You wake up in the morning and get ready for work. As you brush your teeth, you are mentally thinking of what to wear to the office, what to have for breakfast, how the day at the office will be like, what plans you have for lunch, whether to meet your friends after work for drinks, hit the gym and work out on your abdominals or pectorals, or watch your favorite sitcoms on television.
And if you have children, you will probably have a tactical plan of squeezing some time out of the day to stock up the refrigerator with groceries, pick your young ones up from tuition classes, have dinner with the in-laws (which side?), do homework with your children and prepare for that important presentation to impress the big bosses. On the way to work, you read up on the latest world's events, listen to the radio about the bulls and bears of the market, SMS acquaintances, have breakfast.
And you have yet to step into the office! Once in the office, you answer e-mails, pagers, hand phones, queries from bosses and colleagues, juggle administrative work and filing. Before you know it, the day has ended and another schedule is demanding your attention to complete.
Now, there is scientific research to lend evidence to what we have suspected all along - multitasking, though productive, does have its down side.
According to Joshua Rubinstein, David Meyer and Jeffrey Evans (Human Perception and Performance, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 27(4) 2001), our capacity for multitasking has its limits. Their study showed that participants lost time in performance speed when switching tasks (solving mathematical questions and classifying geometric shapes) and they lost more time as the tasks increased in complexity. However, when the tasks were easier, in the sense that participants found them familiar, their time of completion speeded up.
According to Rubinstein, Meyer and Evans, the explanation seems to lie in the prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex, known as the "e Mental CEOs"e; of our brain - they help to priorities the various tasks that we have to do and allocate our mental resources to each of them effectively. What this means is that when we choose to do X, our Mental CEOs' goal will be focusing on tasks related to X and activating the rules necessary in accomplishing X; other chores/activities (goals) and their associating rules will be put aside.
Activating these rules takes time, about several tenths of a second as indicated by the researchers, which may not be significant until you consider the number of activities people engaged themselves in, in multitasking. Time lost could possibly put one's life at stake, as people struggle between negotiating on the phone with clients/colleagues and their cars on a busy road.
The results of this study have ramifications in many aspects of our lives, one most vital of which is time management skills: it is the focus on results and not on being inundated with activities. Here are some tips that can help you better manage your time as you multitask your way into personal and professional responsibilities.
Determine what is important for success in your personal and professional lives, and what constitutes exceptional performance. Know what is expected of you and then set the goals and plans that will lead you to that success.
Use an activity journal to evaluate your use of time and your energy levels at different times of the day. This may help to give you some insight as to how much your time is worth, and which tasks should be avoided, dropped or delegated.
Maintain an appropriate diet, rest and sleep regiment so that you can spend more time performing well.
Give important work - big project at the office and or comforting your child through exam stress - the quality time it deserves.
Use time spent waiting in lines or delays effectively. Do your bills, balance your check-book or catch up on your reading; confirm appointments ahead of time and should you be kept waiting, decide if you can afford to leave after 15 minutes and inform the contact person of your departure. Re-negotiate another time that is convenient.
Control the distractions that interfere with effective work by letting colleagues or family members know when you do not want to be disturbed and what constitutes as an important distraction (office building is on fire; toilet bowl backed up). Handle phone calls efficiently by establishing the purpose of the phone call ahead of time, tailoring your conversation style to the person you are addressing, giving concise answers to questions asked and summarizing your points at the end of the conversation.
As you manage your time effectively, you will be more productive, gain more control of what you do, and give yourself time to make plans that improve your career prospects and the quality of your life outside of work. Understand that it is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts.
You enter the door at 8:02 a.m. to be greeted by your secretary. She hands you a stack of 18 "e While You Were Out & quote; slips that she has transcribed from your voicemail. You glance at your overstuffed briefcase in one hand, your laptop in the other, and the stack of folders under your arm. You consider trying to squeeze the messages between two available fingers. "e Oh, wait, & quote; she says, and she points to three Federal Express packages. No way to carry it all now, so you head off to unload the work you brought back from home.
Your desk looks like a war zone—and your side lost. A quick glance at your computer reminds you to check your e-mail. What? 26 messages! How can that be? You checked it before you went to bed last night and spent 45 minutes answering all the messages. As you read your e-mail, you flip through yesterday's mail. The phone rings, and as you half-listen to one of your employees you scroll through your e-mail to decide what to answer now and what can wait until later.
Your day has just begun, and already you are exhausted. You feel like an octopus, with your arms and brain moving in multiple directions at the same time. By the time you have finished your work day—technically eight hours later (ha!)—you will have started and stopped dozens of tasks. The phone, the fax, the beep of an incoming e-mail all wrench your mind from what you are doing and thinking. When you finally return to your work, often you have lost your train of thought. Finding it again takes extra effort and time that you don't really have.
You're not alone. A study by the Institute for the Future reported that employees of Fortune 1,000 companies send and receive 178 messages a day and are interrupted an average of at least three times an hour. No doubt, the more senior the executive, the worse the problem. One East Coast executive with whom we consulted found communications technologies so distracting that he had to arrive at the office in the early hours of the morning to get anything done. Even then, he had to hide in a room far away from the beeping fax machine and from any e-mail hookup.
This problem is what we call "Multitasking Madness & quote; Human beings have brains that allow them to appear as though they can comfortably perform more than one task at a time. In reality, our brains have an excellent filtering mechanism that helps switch our attention rapidly from one thought to the next.
At the same time, rather than lose unattended thoughts, the mechanism keeps them active in the recesses of the brain.
The more we juggle, however, the less efficient we become at performing any one task. And the longer we go before returning to an interrupted task, the harder it is to remember just where we left off.
Not surprisingly, laboratory research shows that multitasking increases stress, diminishes perceived control, and may cause physical discomfort such as stomach aches or headaches. Our own research on more than 25,000 people worldwide demonstrates that Multitasking Madness makes it ever harder to concentrate for extended periods. You might notice that as you are working on one task, thoughts about another creep into your consciousness. This is that filtering mechanism, doing its work keeping important tasks close at mind. Another sign of Multitasking Madness is the feeling that your memory is not quite as good as it used to be. You start working on something and then find yourself not being able to remember what you wanted to do or say. Still another symptom is an inability to sustain a peaceful night's sleep or to enjoy what used to be calming, recreational times. Too many thoughts are buzzing in your head.
In the end, Multitasking Madness diminishes your productivity and makes you work harder just to feel like you are barely keeping up with all your work.
Yet if you look around you you'll see people multitasking everywhere, largely because of technology. People even check pagers and answer cellular phones on the golf course. Research shows that our eroding ability to estimate time accurately also contributes to Multitasking Madness. Ask someone how long it will take to download, read, and answer e-mail. Then check the actual time. You'll generally find that the person underestimated the time required. This discrepancy leads us to pile more expectations on ourselves. We multitask more and more, and soon we have way too much to juggle.
But you can stop the Madness.
First and foremost, you must become better at estimating the time it takes you to complete a task. Make a list of all the tasks that you plan to complete during, say, a four-hour period and then write down how long you think that each task will take. Now, time yourself. You'll find the percentage by which you typically underestimate, and you can adjust your expectations. Of course, you also have to learn to say no to tasks you don't have time to complete.
Second, you should develop an external memory to take some of the load off your brain. An external memory can be as simple as a pad of paper. Once you list the tasks you're juggling, your mind feels comfortable letting go of the memory traces, and your filter gets a chance to rest. This sort of multitasking break is particularly effective right before you go to sleep. If you find yourself awakening in the middle of the night, dump your thoughts on a pad of paper that you keep by the side of the bed. Sleep should come back soon.
Third, you need to give yourself a chance to persevere on a task until completion—the most productive way to work. This may require removing distractions: turning off most programs on your computer, not checking your e-mail, and turning off the ringer on your phone and fax.
Fourth, you need "e down time"—watching a baseball game, playing with your children, going to a movie with your spouse. This is crucial to refresh your system and let you return to your work with a clean perspective and the ability to work more effectively.
Remember, technology can multitask forever. You cannot.
Drs. Rosen and Weil TechnoStress: Coping With Technology @Work @Home @Play
NPR - August 6, 2001
"To do two things at once, is to do neither, " said the Roman sage Publilius Syrus. This was 2,000 years ago, long before people tried to drive while talking on their cell phones and digging for tollbooth change and yelling at the kids and listening to the radio.
Syrus may have overstated the case, but a new study concludes that performance does drop off when people try to accomplish more than one task at a time.
Another sage -- William Shakespeare this time -- called procrastination 'the thief of time.'
But it looks like multitasking is giving procrastination a run for its money. Professor David Meyer of the University of Michigan and his colleagues set out to measure the effects of multitasking. They asked several dozen student volunteers to switch back and forth between different types of arithmetic problems. If they had to switch rapidly from, say, multiplication to division, it took them "quite a bit" longer to finish, Meyer said.
For instance, it might take a minute to finish 10 multiplication problems, but a mix of 10 multiplication and division problems might take 15 or 20 seconds longer.
Professor Marcel Just of Carnegie Mellon University said there is a drop-off in efficiency even when different parts of the brain are used for different tasks. Just used a brain-imaging machine to see what part of the brain that test subjects used when they listened to complicated sentences while simultaneously looking at a geometric object they were told to mentally rotate. Just had expected that the different parts of the brain wouldn't be affected by what the other part was working on. Or, he thought, each part might have to work harder to complete its task. Instead, it turned out that both parts of the brain worked less efficiently, meaning that less brainpower in total was directed at both tasks than would have been used if only one task were attempted at a time.
Meyer has done studies concluding that people can, through training, improve their ability to multitask. He calls this "mental yoga." For instance, with practice, people can improve the time it takes them to respond to a visual prompt on a computer while also reacting to auditory prompts through headphones. But Meyer says there's a limit to the improvement, and that workers -- and bosses -- tend to overestimate the ability to multitask. His advice: "If you can avoid it, don't multitask." Both Meyer and Just oppose talking on the phone while driving, except in the safest driving conditions - well-known roads with little traffic, and no tollbooths.
Multitasking is hardest in the early morning PhysOrg - May 5, 2007
ELLIE'S ARCHIVES AND ADVENTURES
CRYSTALINKS MAILING LIST, NEWSLETTER, UPDATES