multitasking confusion

• Pattern analysis of confusion caused by [multitasking

• Confused by Task A and Task B

  • Only one can be done at a time, so choose one side.
    • How to choose: near deadlines, some kind of priority, coin toss if you can’t decide

• I have Task A and Task B, and I think I should do A, which is closer to the deadline, but I’m concerned about B.

  • What is “curious”?
    • Anxiety that Task B may not be accomplished due to the loss of time by doing Task A because the size of Task B has not been estimated.
      • If Task A is not important, it should be discarded.
      • If you don’t mind if Task B fails, you should reopen it.
      • Both Task A and Task B want to succeed. - He who runs after two hares will catch neither
        • Try Task B for 30 minutes to improve estimation accuracy.
        • If, after improving the accuracy of the estimate, it is still incompatible, then the problem should be solved in some way. A turret of thought

• Task A and Task B are competing for resources and a decision needs to be made about which one to do, but you are not ready to make the decision, so you do Task C, which is neither.

  • If due to poor estimation
  • If you cannot determine whether A or B is more valuable

• Lack of clarity about task completion conditions (e.g., making good presentation materials) leads to endless estimates, which can easily overlap with other tasks and cause problems

  • Anxiety is likely to increase if the time taken for a task is greatly estimated.
  • Tasks with unclear completion conditions should be cut by time, but the decision to cut by time and not to take more time to improve quality is often avoided because of the fear involved. As a result, people often “kill time by doing other things until the very last minute and use the deadline as a real time limit. Not very good for mental health.

• Basically, people with multitasking confusion are often advised to “focus on one task,” but in cases where this does not work, there is probably a mismatch between the task chosen by reason and emotion.

  • The one that says, “In my head, I know I should do Task A.”
  • I think we need to delve into why on earth the emotional side is refusing to perform the task.

---

This page is auto-translated from /nishio/マルチタスク混乱 using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.