The curse of multi-tasking

At a party last weekend I was reassured by a group of inspiring women about taking a week to write one simple blog post because of baby distractions. Your brain feels fractured into endless simple, repetitive tasks. One had managed to write a chapter of a forthcoming book about how to be a writer on parental leave with all the unavoidable perpetual interruptions (while caring for her four month old).  Impressive!

The hard truth is that to do most things in life to any successful level you need stretches of uninterrupted time to focus or let the imagination wander. A painter, composer, designer, architect, carpenter, brick layer, they all require focus whether to make sure the walls stay up or the joins fit.

So it concerns me that women are always told they are naturally good at multitasking when this is beneficial to managing a household or caring for a baby, but translates badly into most work contexts.

Multitasking in the work environment – checking emails while trying to draft a paper, or sending a text while in a meeting – has been shown to reduce your IQ level and damage your efficiency.  It is common sense that trying to do several things at once often means that no one thing is done thoroughly.

I've observed so many times in offices how it is women who are left, or volunteer, to do the juggling of the administrative tasks while the men focus in on opportunities to concentrate that will further their career. I think it’s this cultural belief that women are naturally more suited to those multitasking roles that contributes to gender inequality.

I have done this myself so many times. I envy my husband who can sit at the kitchen table, enter his creative world and write a chapter while surrounded by dirty dishes and the phone ringing. I will always allow myself to be distracted by thinking about what to cook, who I need to phone and whether the floor needs a clean, before I focus on writing.

Perhaps the multitasking woman was selected for in cave times if it meant you could look after a baby and keep an eye out for danger. But cave dwelling is long behind us, and so should the myth of women being the only multi-tasker. 

If we are to see greater equality at work and at home then women need to get over being the ones that multi task the best, and men need to learn to become better at this when it’s needed – for domestic and child care. This multitasking myth simultaneously lets men off the hook – “I can only do one thing at a time” means the dishes and laundry pile up while the baby is being cared for – and keeps women from breaking free from the tyranny of a million tiny distractions.