Multichannel Multitasking: The New Way to Multitask
It’s not easy to make time for the multitude of things that our everyday lives require of us. Indeed, it’s why some of us try to juggle multiple things at once and often struggle to do so. The good news is that there is another way.
Why doesn’t conventional multitasking work?
Various studies have shown that multitasking as we know it is not as productive as we’d like to think. Why is this? Well, excessive multitasking, especially of complex tasks, can put the brain in a state of cognitive overload.
Over time, the continuous bombardment of information can cause mental fatigue, increased stress levels, and even lead to issues with anxiety and other mental health disorders. There’s also evidence to suggest that chronic multitasking can affect the brain’s its plasticity, and its ability to focus on one single task deeply. This scattered cognitive approach could impact learning abilities and long-term cognitive development.
The phenomenon we experience when multitasking is sometimes called task switching or cognitive switching costs. This refers to the resources that are required by the brain to respond to the demands of numerous involved tasks at once.
So, what’s the answer?
With that said, how do we make multi-tasking work for us? That’s where multichannel multitasking comes in.
The key to successfully balancing more than one task is pairing the right kinds of tasks together. First of all, we need to understand the limits of our brain when it comes to multitasking, using some basic principles:
The brain only has a finite amount of processing power. The more concentration a task requires, the less it will have for anything else.
The brain also has a limited amount of attention channels, and can only make sense of one sensory (e.g. auditory, visual) input at any one time.
Cross-modal attention is what our brains are capable of doing – processing multichannel inputs in which we can focus on one thing while another mental process runs on autopilot.
Building task bundles
To clarify, let’s look at some examples of multichannel multitasking and task bundling. What you want to do is pair a more complex task with a less cognitively strenuous one, for instance:
Walking and creative thinking (working through a problem), or taking a phone call.
Listening to a podcast while doing household chores.
Exercising while listening to a self-help audio book.
Not only are these types of pairings the best way to multitask effectively, but they can also boost productivity and motivation, helping us get the most out of our busy days via a process known as temptation bundling. So, why not give it a go?