View Single Post
Old 03-10-2006, 06:32 PM   #16 (permalink)
Tamerlain
Insane
 
Tamerlain's Avatar
 
Location: Victoria
As has been mentioned already, what is commonly referred to as multitasking is really just juggling. The english language can be blamed for not supplying a proper definition.

The wife who cooks dinner, vacuums, helps the children with their homework and pays the bills is juggling multiple tasks, she is not multitasking. I take multitasking to be doing two things at the same time, which is impossible for a human being to do. A computer can do multiple things at once, a human cannot. Well no, I take that back. A human can do two things at once (walk and talk), but a human cannot focus on two things at once. It is impossible for a human to write two different sentences with each hand; it is impossible to solve two different mathematical equations on two separate pieces of paper, etc. Sorry for the tangent.

In comparing males and females, I have noticed that it is more common for females to be better at juggling tasks than males. This could be attributed to tradition - dad comes home from working all day and sits down to relax, mom is cooking dinner, helping kids with homework and cleaning; sociological - many societies place higher values on "bringing home the bacon" and as such this is a task which must be focused upon intently; or, as has been mentioned, environmental - men were expected to provide food for the tribe, which required intense focus to track and kill.

In general, however, I find that people who are better able to deal with stress are better at juggling tasks. It is easy to be overwhelmed by having to accomplish lots of things in a short period of time. The better one is able to manage one's time, the more successful one will be at juggling tasks.

-Tamerlain
__________________
I never let school interfere with my education.
Tamerlain is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360