Multi-Task Myth

Think you should get better at multi-tasking?  Actually, current research seems to show the myth about multi-tasking…being good at multi-tasking is an illusion created while in the busy mode of multi-tasking!  
 
Here’s some of the current research that you might find interesting:

• In 2005, the BBC reported on a research study, funded by Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, that found, “Workers distracted by e-mail and phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in marijuana smokers.” 
• Researchers at the University of California at Irvine monitored interruptions among office workers; they found that workers were interrupted on average every 11 minutes and took 23 minutes to return to the task. 
• Russell Poldrack, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that “multitasking adversely affects how you learn. Even if you learn while multitasking, that learning is less flexible and more specialized, so you cannot retrieve the information as easily.” Discussing his research on National Public Radio, Poldrack warned, “We’re really built to focus. And when we force ourselves to multitask, we’re driving ourselves to perhaps be less efficient in the long run even though it sometimes feels like we’re being more efficient.”
• Stanford research put people who regularly multi-task and even consider themselves to perform well at multitasking through a series of tests.  Tests showed that multi-taskers were outperformed by those who are only light multi-taskers.  They found the heavy multi-taskers had difficulty with their memory plus were distracted by irrelevant information much more easily than those who did not multi-task often. 
• Here’s a video that gives an example of how the brain is trying to operate in “multi-task” mode and further information on the subject:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJuXV6AD93s

Dr. Edward Hallowell, a Massachusetts-based psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and has written a book with the self-explanatory title CrazyBusy. In his book he calls multitasking a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously.” He describes a new condition, “Attention Deficit Trait,” which he claims is rampant in the business world. ADT is “purely a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live,” …“Never in history has the human brain been asked to track so many data points.”
 
It is rather difficult to multitask and stay in the present moment.  One way to talk about being in the present moment is the art of paying attention -- being available to truly listen to others as well as the still small voice inside and to become aware of the Source of All Thought.  These cannot be accomplished when one is pulled in many directions at the same time. 
  
However, it is normal for minds in the waking state to wander aimlessly through 60-100,000 thoughts per day. These thoughts are random or in reaction to the environment. So, few minds are accustomed to being one-pointed.    
 
In Ascension! An analysis of the Art of Ascension as taught by the Ishayas, MSI said, “The mind can be trained to think one-pointedly, or it can continue to think as most human minds think, in conflict and diversity. Ascension’s simple suggestion is that this process of re-training is not only effortless but easy, completely natural and extremely quick. Part of the secret is to charm the mind during every phase of this transformation.”  
 
The simple, regular practice of charming the mind to rest using “The Art of Ascension” is all that is required to experience our heritage of Infinite Awareness, to gain true freedom, and to live life spontaneously.  It becomes easier and easier to experience the love around us and to love more deeply.  Life unfolds in perfection.  

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