Serial Tasking; or, How Not to Floss

I remember when my first son was little and I would be listening to music, and John would confound me by humming a different tune while he played at my feet. Maybe the ability to literally “tune out” so profoundly is just one of those stages of child brain development, like unintentional writing in mirror image. Or maybe I’m the only one who can’t hum against the music. Whichever it is, I’ve known for quite a while that my mind is pretty much limited to one track at a time.

Of course, I’m often forced to multitask. In fact I was inspired to write on this topic the other day when, pressed for time, I found myself flossing during my workout. (I’m not making that up. And yes, I did find muscles I never knew I had.) Once again, I learned that when I do two things at once, one of them suffers in quality.

We hear a lot these days about attention deficit and multitasking, and given that multitasking is the very definition of copyediting, how do we cope? I recall a study some time ago suggesting that teenagers study better while listening to music.* But more recent research concludes that “multitasking” is really just “serial tasking,” and that chopping chores into disconnected bits isn’t as efficient as we like to think. Rather, we suffer from “reduced ability to filter out interference from the irrelevant task.”**

But we knew that.

Experience and common sense tell us that when a deadline looms, turning off and tuning out can give us a dose of needed concentration and efficiency. For an hour, say, forget the e-mail, muffle the tweets, and go at it single-mindedly.

(Go on, now—git!)

______

*Disclaimer: Whenever I mention a study without a citation, it’s possible I’m making it up.

**Eyal Ophir et al., “Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers,” 1.

Photo by Charles Davis from Pixabay

Comments

[Stan Carey]

"I found myself flossing during my workout. (I’m not making that up. And yes, I did find muscles I never knew I had.)"

Between your teeth?

I'm very fussy about music while I work. Silence is my usual setting, but if there's to be music I choose something ambient. This can mean anything from classical to electronica.

[petrarch]

NPR's science friday recently aired a story on multitasking.
http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201006114

[Rosemary Hulce]

Your statement that "multitasking is the very definition of copyediting" threw me a little. I have raised two boys and still don't consider myself a good multitasker, and I always maintained that one of the reasons copyediting suits me well is that I am, well, a somewhat linear thinker...

[Aegtranslations.blogspot.com]

I think my favorite thing in this post is the disclaimer. In fact, I may steal it if you don't mind. ;-)

(Just stumbled across your blog today in Twitter. It makes for a good read!)

[sm]

I discovered years ago that whether it was reading or writing, I could not listen to music with words in English if I wanted to do the job. Most instrumental music is OK, a different story altogether. And if the words are not in English, they are just part of the instrumental music to me. Italian opera can make me more productive.

How many manuscripts have you run into with the characteristic problems of dictation software?