You're standing at the front door juggling the keys and a bag of shopping in one hand. In another hand, a fractious child needs a clean pair of pants.
Meanwhile, your phone buzzes from someone wanting to talk about something urgent.
So yes, you can multi-task, but the answer really depends on what those tasks are. Hopefully, you can walk and chew gum at the same time without too much trouble.
It comes down to whether or not you are overloading a limited resource. As you're reading this story, your body is performing many functions at the same time without difficulty.
Usually when we talk about multi-tasking, it refers to the higher executive functions of the brain. If you can only do one at a time, it requires you to jump from one task to another.
When you switch tasks, you need to process new information while temporarily forgetting what you were doing before.
It's a bit like shuffling scraps of paper on your desk, each time you do that, there's an overhead.
This effect has been measured by researchers who have shown convincingly that certain types of multi-tasking is inefficient.
In my university days I wrote very few lecture notes because I found it difficult to write and listen at the same time. I could absorb information, but not as well while I was also writing.
Presumably this was because both actions require exclusive access to the language processing parts of my brain.
However I could write an essay while listening to music. Oddly enough, I felt I was even more effective with the music than without, which suggests perhaps music can even enhance brain processing.
Later in work meetings, I would draw doodles. While that may have appeared to colleagues as if it were a distraction, it could be a way to stay focused during a long session.
Multi-tasking is a serious question, not just at work, but while we are driving where it has safety implications.
Modern vehicles have so much electronics inside the car, that it threatens to distract from important details going on outside.
And, paradoxically, it could be less safe if driver-assist features encourage our attention to drift while the machine is doing the work for us.
That then can trigger dangerous situations where we've lost track of what's happening on the road.
In an emergency, the average driver takes about 1.5 seconds to react and, if your reaction is slowed by another second, that could be the difference between a near miss and disaster.
The Fuzzy Logic Science Show is at 11am Sundays on 2xx 98.3FM. Send your questions to AskFuzzy@Zoho.com; Podcast: FuzzyLogicOn2xx.Podbean.com
