Comments on: Multitasking in IT: Sought-after skill or burnout bedlam?

By: Rontomlin

Rontomlin — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 14:35:38 +0000

I totally concur with the previous posts, that there is a gender difference.
The information that I have read seems to speak to my male gender.
Thomas Davenport and John Beck point out a couple of studies in their book, “The Attention Economy”.
Using terms like “Multitasking Mirage”, “increased risk of multitasking”, “we will have to come to grips with our multitasking limits”
My personal experience is that my ability to multitask increases as the task to perform require less thought such as walking and chewing gum.

By: Kristen Caretta

Kristen Caretta — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 01:11:26 +0000

Corinthia — Interesting. I came across a similar study on gender and multitasking.

Robin — Thanks for the added insight! Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints is worth a look.

By: RobinGoldsmith

RobinGoldsmith — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 23:31:01 +0000

It’s entirely possible Corinthia is seeing an effect unrelated to the multi-tasking. I”m a male but joke that “man-hours” sometimes fail to match “woman-hours.” Multi-tasking’s diminution of productivity is fairly widely recognized, except by those who are immersed in it and having to work twice as hard to get things done. While I believe Elihu Goldratt and the Theory of Constraints folks tend to overstate their case, they do have some valuable examples of how working on just one task at a time results in more tasks being completed sooner.

By: Corinthia

Corinthia — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 16:59:28 +0000

I remember seeing a TV show of a study at a university, were they had an office setup on a stage - and they gave a list of task to a student to complete in this office - but there was a time limit, they had to get all 40 items done in a set time, filing, copies made, logging in doing task ….
What they found was the males went in order of the list, and never finished all the task in time — while the females multitasked, did the task in varies orders and a large percentage finished all the task.

Does the above study show the gender difference? Also the stress levels of having to multi-task had a gender difference.