Monday, April 19, 2010

MultiTasking

Multitasking is the ability to handle and complete multiple tasks at the same time.

All of us - in our daily life - are being asked to multi task. While some of us manage to this well, others are not comfortable with juggling more than one task at a time.

This ability to multi task is after all decided by the capability of our brains.


As per this news article, our brain is capable of handling only 2 tasks at the same time.

A new study has found the mind may easily deal with two separate tasks at the same time as it can channel them into the two separate parts of the front of the brain; but when a third activity is introduced, the mind gets overloaded. Not only the accuracy declines but people are much less able to carry out tasks, the scientists say. 

"This finding suggests that the human frontal function is limited to accurately driving the pursuit of two concurrent goals at a time. This capacity limit places severe constraint bearing upon human higher cognition and may clarify several limitations in human decision making and reasoning abilities."  

Well, we can learn one thing here. If given more than two tasks, attempt to multi task only two of them at the same time. If this article is true, it would give you better results - without putting undue pressure on your brains.