Annemarie Holbrook-Multitasking

After watching the TEDTalk on multitasking, I take a step back and look at my current situation. I sit here with a list of things to do: statistics homework, finalizing my English essay, studying for my economics exam, and the ever so important thoughts about what I will do for dinner tonight. I have fallen the worst victim of multitasking without knowing it. I am sitting in the library and am being constantly distracted by the people around me, as well as my own inner thoughts.  My phone is out on the table, my statistics online homework is opened in a browser that also has a tab for Facebook and another tab for my economics notes, and my English essay sits in the background of the computer screen. All the things I have to do for homework are readily accessible and I continue to switch back and forth among them all. The social distractions continue to cut my attention on a single task, for example right now I just stopped typing and picked up my phone because I received a picture message. The reality of my situation is I am not doing myself any good by keeping everything open and in reach. I have come to convince myself that if I become stuck on one thing it is productive to just switch task to task. However, this is extremely untrue. I believe that nothing can be done to my best ability unless it is the sole focus of my attention. In today’s day and age, doing multiple things at one time has become second nature. The iPhone has allowed us to do multiple things at once, our computers give us the ability to have multiple browsers out at a time, with the thought that the more you can do at once the more you will get done. This is true, but the quality of these tasks takes the burden in this vision. Without my full attention in my friends’ conversation I am not truly there, and without all my focus on my essay, my thoughts on paper become scattered. It becomes apparent when I start typing what someone else is saying or I completely don’t hear what is said. We all must take a step back and realize what we are doing, choose a single task, and give it our all.