Gen-Z Employees: Work to Live or Live to Work?
What Have We Learned from Whistleblowing Cases?

Multitasking and Your Emotional and Mental Well-Being

Workplace Costs and Benefits

According to Very Well Mind, an online resource that provides useful information about mental health, “Multitasking involves working on two or more tasks simultaneously, switching back and forth from one thing to another, or performing a number of tasks in rapid succession." Most of us have been multitasking for many years. I know of many people who answer calls on their phone while doing something online. There are others who sit in on meetings or presentations all the while answering work-related texts on their phone. On the surface, it may seem that the ability to multitask is beneficial, especially in the workplace. However, it's much more complicated than that.

Can Multitasking Be Harmful to Your Health?

The conventional wisdom seems to be that multitasking can be harmful to your health especially as we get older. Writing for Very Well Mind, Kendra Cherry says that “while multitasking seems like a great way to get a lot done at once, research has shown that our brains are not nearly as good at handling multiple tasks as we like to think they are. In fact, some research suggests that multitasking can actually hamper your productivity by reducing our comprehension, attention, and overall performance.

According to the American Psychological Association, “Doing more than one task at a time, especially more than one complex task, takes a toll on productivity…Psychologists who study what happens to cognition (mental processes) when people try to perform more than one task at a time have found that the mind and brain were not designed for heavy-duty multitasking.”

Multitasking work can lead to a lack of interpersonal relationships as well. In today’s digital world, it is easy for people to get lost in their computer screens, neglecting the human aspect of communication and relationships. This can negatively impact not only client relations but the company culture as a whole.

When we multitask, we are not actually doing two things at once. Instead, we are shifting our attention from one thing to another, losing processing time and effort with each shift. Studies indicate that when multitasking, we make up to 4 times more errors and it can take up to 50% longer to accomplish a task.

Examples of Multitasking

Some of the most common types of multitasking include:

  • Starting two projects at the same time
  • Listening to the radio while driving to work
  • Talking on the phone while typing an assignment
  • Watching television while responding to work emails
  • Scrolling through social media while in a meeting
  • Listening to a person talk while writing a to-do list

Mental and Emotional Well-being

According to Beverly Johnson, a Certified Health Coach and Personal Trainer, "Beyond the impact on productivity and work quality, multitasking can also affect mental health. Trying to manage multiple tasks simultaneously increases stress, leading to mental fatigue and burnout. In the long run, this can result in chronic stress-related issues, such as anxiety and sleep disorders."

Johnson believes that multitasking may seem like a superpower in our fast-paced world, but it's an inefficient way to work. By dividing our attention across multiple tasks, we can reduce our ability to perform each well. Instead, single-tasking — focusing on one task at a time — is a far more effective strategy for increasing productivity, improving work quality, and maintaining mental well-being.

A University of Sussex study found that multitasking with media (e.g., using a phone, laptop, and TV simultaneously) is associated with reduced brain density in the area responsible for empathy and emotional control. This study suggests that frequent multitasking may have long-term effects on mental and emotional well-being.

Multitasking

Effects of Multitasking in the Workplace

Multitasking can create workplace distress. Multitasking without maintaining a proper work-life balance can lead to increased mental and emotional health issues. Stress, anxiety and burnout can begin to manifest themselves if the employee is overwhelmed with an abundance of job duties.

Decreased memory function is another potential downside of multitasking. The constant flow of information into the employee’s mind can cause them to process too much information too quickly. This can lead to jumbling tasks together, as well as forgetting critical duties and assignments.

This is where my problems come into play. I find that trying to do two things at the same time leads to extra stress and a lack of patience especially when someone approaches me for advice—or just to say ‘hello.’ I want to send them away without being objectionable. You are affecting my work product; I think to myself.  It can be a challenge. It often is unhealthy, and I feel bad for ignoring them and guilty for doing so. However, I typically realize my shortcoming before it's too late and change my behavior to be more thoughtful.

For the past 20 years, studies have shown that multitasking impedes performance of tasks. In addition to the immediate effects on performance, chronic multitasking affects how well people can focus on relevant information, memory management, and task switching – even when they are not multitasking. This has implications for corporate policies that encourage multitasking (by requiring quick responses to email and phone calls, for example).

Multitasking and Ethics

My interests always lie in how behavior potentially affects ethics in the workplace and one’s work ethic. I don’t see how multitasking would bring positive effects in the workplace, and it could harm organizational culture. There may be more mistakes, and if one person in a work group is the guilty party, others may come to resent them. It might create a competition between those who use multitasking to get ahead and those who don’t.

I mentioned above that I might feel badly if others are trying to draw my attention. It affects me because I always strive for compassion and empathy. Following my inaction, I might wonder whether that person had a personal problem, and one I could have helped with. How would I feel if they had turned me away, I ask? Often, I can change my attitude towards them and reverse my behavior. This is one of the benefits of living your life, as I do, by first considering the ethical effects of our actions on others before deciding what to do.

Tests of how multitaskers manage their working memory suggest that chronic multitasking makes it difficult to manage details – even when they are not multitasking -- which could well make ethical analysis and decision-making more difficult.

The same is true for tests of how quickly people are able to switch from one task to another. While it might seem that multitaskers would be good at this, they are actually slower at it than those who don't multitask. This could affect one’s work ethic, especially over time.

Some workers may believe that by multitasking they will move up more quickly within the organization, but there is no evidence to support the assertion.

What Should You Do?

Beverly Johnson says: "It's time to debunk the multitasking myth and embrace the power of focused work. By adopting single-tasking strategies, minimizing distractions, and practicing mindfulness, you'll not only accomplish more, but you'll do so with greater precision and less stress."

My advice is to slow down. Think more carefully about what you are doing and why, and how it might affect others. This is very important in the workplace because working in teams is quite common, and it is important to workplace productivity for all members of the team to act in harmony, which requires similar workplace values and perspectives on multitasking.

Posted by Steven Mintz, aka Ethics Sage, on October 8, 2024. You can sign up for his newsletter and learn more about his activities at: https://www.stevenmintzethics.com/.

Comments