Multitasking

[DirectorAbbie]

My family wants to know whether it's type related. My ENFp dad is proud to be a multitasker. (Actually, his usual multitasking consists of walking into a room, forgetting why, and loosing something at the same time.) My ISTp mom says she doesn't multitask because she likes to do things right. She does laundry while she cooks. I love to multitask, mainly because I love to save as much time as possible and have plenty to spare. I love efficiency and productivity. I have multiple windows up on computer, and while stuff loads I'll do something else.

[Singu]

I like multitasking... and I also like efficiency. I'm not sure about productivity. I don't care how long it takes... I just want to get it right.

It's interesting... because my ENFj dad pretty much does things only 1 thing at a time. I can't imagine doing things like that.

[tereg]

Multitasking is the essence of my life.

[Linalee]

My ENFp dad is proud to be a multitasker. (Actually, his usual multitasking consists of walking into a room, forgetting why, and loosing something at the same time.)

Well... Me too actually. Especially when i'm doing boring or unimportant things. But when I put my mind on it, I can monitor 3 simple tasks at once. No more, or it would get poorly executed. For complex tasks, one at a time.

About multi-tasking... What is annoying is when a cashier talks endlessly about unimportant things while 20 persons are waiting at the checkout. Couldn't he/she do his/her job while talking ? Or get it quickly done so he/she could talk comfortably after (and not making you lose your time) ?
Don't you think it's infuriating ? Every time I'm pissed off with this kind of behaviour, I get disapproving looks.

By the way, I'm INFx, let's say INFJ, for statistics.

[717495]

This might answer your question. Process-Result.

Process
Prefer to finish the entire process till the end before doing something else.
Do things sequentially, from the beginning to the end.
Immersed to a process and tends to single-tasking.
Focus between the beginning and the end of processes.
More inclined to read texts on books or computer from beginning to the end.
Socially more inclined to large groups.

Result
Use words such as "start", "end", "result" very quite often, and can have many things running in parallel and managing them quite ok.
Do things randomly, seemingly doing them from the end to the beginning.
Detached from processes and tends to multitasking.
Focus on the beginning and the end of processes.
More inclined to read texts on books or computer randomly, maybe reading random paragraphs or chapters.
Socially more inclined to small groups or intimate conversations.

The process IM types are ILE, SEI, EIE, LSI, SEE, ILI, LSE, EII.
The result IM types are ESE, LII, SLE, IEI, LIE, ESI, IEE, SLI.

[717495]

I don't consider myself a big multitasker, but others of the process type certainly do and can never fully understand what I'm working at. Everything is so outwardly casual for me. Inward others see chaos, however I tend to look at reasons why there isn't chaos, what can be adjusted.

[Banana Pancakes]

I tend to have a lot of tasks open at once (100+ tabs open in firefox, music/movie playing, reading a book) so people assume I'm SUPER MULTITASKAR.

I only focus at one at a time though, so really I'm not multitasking. I actually have a rough time with interruptions and focusing on more than one thing. If I'm doing something while talking to you, it's not that I'm being a talented multitasker, I'm actually not hearing a word you're saying :wink:

[MrMoney]

I do multitask and I'm good at it.

[1981slater]

People get angry at me because I multitask!

[Suz]

My family wants to know whether it's type related. My ENFp dad is proud to be a multitasker. (Actually, his usual multitasking consists of walking into a room, forgetting why, and loosing something at the same time.) My ISTp mom says she doesn't multitask because she likes to do things right. She does laundry while she cooks. I love to multitask, mainly because I love to save as much time as possible and have plenty to spare. I love efficiency and productivity. I have multiple windows up on computer, and while stuff loads I'll do something else.

Interestingly, I like to multitask and have always considered myself pretty good at it, until I met my dual and realized he is much better at multitasking than I am, and I actually am pretty bad at it because of how distracted I get.

[Suz]

I tend to have a lot of tasks open at once (100+ tabs open in firefox, music/movie playing, reading a book) so people assume I'm SUPER MULTITASKAR.

I only focus at one at a time though, so really I'm not multitasking. I actually have a rough time with interruptions and focusing on more than one thing. If I'm doing something while talking to you, it's not that I'm being a talented multitasker, I'm actually not hearing a word you're saying :wink:

yeah that rings true for me basically, if I actually want to get something done. Otherwise nothing gets done.

[krieger]

I do quite a bit of multitasking; seemingly more so than my ISTj brother and INFj mother.

[Cyrano]

My family wants to know whether it's type related. My ENFp dad is proud to be a multitasker. (Actually, his usual multitasking consists of walking into a room, forgetting why, and loosing something at the same time.) My ISTp mom says she doesn't multitask because she likes to do things right. She does laundry while she cooks. I love to multitask, mainly because I love to save as much time as possible and have plenty to spare. I love efficiency and productivity. I have multiple windows up on computer, and while stuff loads I'll do something else.

Might be an age component to it too. Remember, your parents, when young, would have thought multi-tasking was changing the ribbon on the typewritter, while dabbing some white-out on a typo, and at the same time checking their spelling in a dictionary (book).

[Aiss]

This might answer your question. Process-Result.

I think it's one of these dichotomies which aren't really working in detail. Like, ILIs preferring large groups of people? And the first point about process, "do things sequentially"... see ESE's PoLR, yet it's the result type. Also the types listed (LSE, SLI) seem to contradict observations from this thread.

[Beautiful sky]

My family wants to know whether it's type related. My ENFp dad is proud to be a multitasker. (Actually, his usual multitasking consists of walking into a room, forgetting why, and loosing something at the same time.) My ISTp mom says she doesn't multitask because she likes to do things right. She does laundry while she cooks. I love to multitask, mainly because I love to save as much time as possible and have plenty to spare. I love efficiency and productivity. I have multiple windows up on computer, and while stuff loads I'll do something else.

Sweetheart, I want to say this as softly as I can, you can't be efficient if you multitask because the nature of Te is such that it sets a standard of prefered outcome therefore they take great care to singletask and do it very well...in many socionics literature you will read that they get wrapped up in the details of a single project.

Cracka is not Te, how would he know? He is ESE...workaholic ESE

[cracka]

I don't totally agree with that maritsa... I won't speak for anyone else but I know this may still ring true for some others. In my work, I'm the most efficient person I know because of my ability to multitask efficiently.
I guess it's how a person would define multitasking though...

In my case, lets say I have 4 pieces of equipment running monitors that take anywhere from 3-30 minutes a piece. The being able to multitask aspect comes in when I know what needs to be started first in order to get everything done as efficiently as possible. So I'll start a monitor that runs for 30 minutes first, that's obvious. Then I may start something that runs for 4 or 5 minutes so I can get other stuff started during those 5 minutes on other equipment before going back and starting something else on the equipment who's monitor is complete after 5 minutes, etc...

I do agree that in some cases, multitasking can easily be an inefficient way of doing things... but again, it depends on the type of multitasking that one is doing. You can't say that it's not efficient to bake a cake in the oven, start a meal on the stove, throw some laundry in the washer, and do some dishes in the dishwasher all at practically the same time. Then again, this is multitasking to me.

[Suz]

Sweetheart, I want to say this as softly as I can, you can't be efficient if you multitask because the nature of Te is such that it sets a standard of prefered outcome therefore they take great care to singletask and do it very well...in many socionics literature you will read that they get wrapped up in the details of a single project.

Cracker is not Te, how would he know? He is ESE...workaholic ESE

Fake.

[Beautiful sky]

Fake.

I knew the minute I mentioned workaholic in a post that you were going to come chase my tail.

[cracka]

At least pay a little bit of attention and spell my damn name right. Cracker is such a racist term.

lol.

[Beautiful sky]

At least pay a little bit of attention and spell my damn name right. Cracker is such a racist term.

lol.

Sorry, multi tasking, spacy INFj behavior coupled with N and no S in sight to be found, produces a lot of odd things.

Did I tell you that my ESE sister is my walking spell check...

[cracka]

Did I tell you that my ESE sister is my walking spell check...

Not surprised to hear that. My world would probably end if I ever made a post here and misspelled something.

[The Exception]

Multitaskers bad at multitasking


Media multitasking is increasingly part of work as well as leisure time



The people who engage in media "multitasking" are those least able to do so well, according to researchers. A survey defined two groups: those who routinely consumed multiple media such as internet, television and mobile phones, and those who did not.
In a series of three classic psychology tests for attention and memory, the "low multitaskers" consistently outdid their highly multitasking counterparts.
The results are reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Increasingly, people who are looking at their computer screen are frequently watching TV, listening to the radio, maybe reading print media, chatting, texting," said Cliff Nass, a co-author on the study from Stanford University.
"On the computer you could be emailing while you have three chats going on while you're playing World of Warcraft. If you look at classical psychology textbooks, people cannot multitask - but if you walk around on the street, you see lots of people multitasking," he told BBC News.
"So we asked ourselves the question, 'what is it that these multitaskers are good at that enable them to do this?'"
Paying attention
The three experiments undertaken by high and low multitaskers were designed to test three aspects that the study's authors believed must contribute to multitaskers' skills.
The shocking discovery of this research is that [high multitaskers] are lousy at everything that's necessary for multitasking


Clifford Nass
Stanford University

In the first, they were tested for their ability to ignore irrelevant information. They were briefly shown a screen with two red rectangles and either 0, 2, 4 or 6 blue rectangles.
The task was to determine whether, when the screen was shown again, one of the red rectangles had been rotated.
Low multitaskers were better at the task, regardless of the number of blue rectangles, whereas high multitaskers got worse at it as the number of distracting blue rectangles went up.
In a test of the degree of organisation of working memory, participants were presented with a series of letters, one at a time, and told to push a button when they saw a letter that they had seen exactly three letters previously.
Again, low multitaskers were significantly better at correctly spotting the repeated letters. Not only did the high multitaskers do worse from the beginning, they got worse at it as time went on.
Thirdly came a test of the participants' ability to switch tasks. They were first shown either "letter" or "number" on a screen, and then presented with a letter/number pair such as A7.
If the preceding screen said "letter", they were to determine if it was a consonant or a vowel. If it said "number", they were to determine if it was even or odd.
After, for example, a series of "number" tasks, the experimenters switched to "letter" tasks. Again, low multitaskers significantly outperformed their counterparts in switching to the new task.
The participants were put into full multitasking mode

"The shocking discovery of this research is that [high multitaskers] are lousy at everything that's necessary for multitasking," Professor Nass said.
"The irony here is that when you ask the low multitaskers, they all think they're much worse at multitasking and the high multitaskers think they're gifted at it."
The pressing question that remains, Professor Nass said, is one of cause and effect: are those people with a dearth of multitasking skills drawn to multitasking lifestyles, or do the lifestyles dull the skills?
The team is actively pursuing new research avenues, such as studying the brain activity of the different groups as they go about their multitasking.
The results could be profound, Professor Nass said, potentially suggesting new means of teaching and even reporting news for those given to a multi-media feed of information.
But at the very least, he said, multitaskers should be told that they are bad at multitasking.



Story from BBC NEWS:
BBC NEWS | Technology | Multitaskers bad at multitasking

Published: 2009/08/24 19:01:21 GMT

[olduser]

I think that is a pretty sensational piece of journalism. I doubt it is as dichotomous as the journalist makes it look.