Although
I'm not aware of how the brain is wired for processing or whether the
lobes act as multiple core's that can work in parallel, I think whether
we like it or not multitasking is part of life.. our own body is
multitasking isn't it ? When your heart is busy pumping blood, lungs are
busy processing oxygen, and nervous system is busy passing messages..
so it's foolish to say multitasking is bad right, now if you say it is
different organs which are doing it, then I ask you back aren't
different processors doing multiple task then, it is only context switch
that happens otherwise in a single core/ organ. Just imagine your
organs going on a strike after reading the article and start
pipe-lining, you would be long dead !! may soul rest in piece(sorry..
peace)
So setting the context, I am talking in the programming
context , Especially on the part that it can increase the chance of
making an error of about 50%, which translates to every other line of
code you write is buggy when multitasking, That is great isn't it, you
are creating job for so many people, Also aren't you the knight in the
shining armor when a bug is fixed in the nick of the time, who wants to
be a boring perfectionist who wants to do things to the best of one's
ability? It's too elaborate to follow some best practices mentioned here. So what are you waiting for bug away to the glory! oops...bask
away in glory!(I'm multi tasking !).
Now getting serious, If I think about it, may be when doing mundane tasks when the brain is already
trained it really doesn't matter when you are context switching, but
yeah when it comes to doing something new personally i have always
preferred completing a task before moving to next, else there is a
daemon running in your brain, reminding you of the same like a cron job!
which is just waste of mips, unless it is documentation ;0) , but would really like to find out the most optimized path! the best way ie
to naturally organize one that can be multitasked ( task switched) vs
rest but that again depends on individuals and the context, so as always
take research papers/articles with pinch of salt and do what suits you
best. I guess not context switching and doing one thing at a time is more in line with living in present, as it is noted by most of the people we spend most of the time in either cribbing/being nostaglic about past or fearing/dreaming about future.. and stop living in present..So it is best not to lose focus of future by start doing things well in present.
Disclaimer: These are my personal views based on my own opinions based on news articles and studies and does not bear any relevance to my current/previous employers.
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