How often do you hear the phrase "men can't multi-task"? To be honest I have always found this saying a bit irritating. I wondered; is there any evidence to suggest that women are better at this skill than men? Also  is it true that with the development of multiple technologies young people are better at multi-tasking?

At the moment I am writing my blog, listening to Billie Holliday on spotify, Stephen Fry has just popped up on tweet deck with his latest twitter and I am listening to a conversation going on in the corridor. Surely this is evidence of pretty good multi-tasking from this 48 year old bloke?

Apparently not! It would appear that research does not support it. Indeed the American Psychiatrist, Richard Hallowell describe multi-tasking as a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously.” If that is the case then what is going on with me, my writing, listening, eaves dropping and observing twitter? Well it appears that is just a simple case of interrupted sequential tasks. 

The phrase muti-tasking comes from the world of computers where the software and architecture are designed so that a number of tasks can be done at the same time. It appears this concept was then applied to humans and has gathered currency since then. It may well be true that I can write and burn a cd at the same time or perhaps hoover and do the laundry but this is because one task requires my focus whilst the other is being done be independent technology. You can also argue that we are able to breathe, see, hear and say walk at the same time but even this is a little controversial as how much of o these are in fact sequential rather than true multi-tasking.

So when applied to people it appears that if we do more than one thing at a time eg try to listen to a conversation whilst writing an email both activities will suffer as a result of not having our full focus. When I truly reflect on what is going on at this moment I know that I am writing and therefore unable to listen to any lyrics of the song that is playing on spotify without slowing down my typing. Each time a tweet pops up my fingers stop moving for me to read the twitter and the people in the corridor can rest assured that unless I stop doing everything else their conversation will not be over heard by their boss!

This has big implications for all the young people and students who believe they work better with the tv on, a number of msn or facebook chat conversations going on, their mobile vibrating with income texts and music playing on itunes. The research cannot find any evidence that young people can work in this environment any better than this old man can!

So if this is true, and deep down many of us always suspected it was, then why do we still flirt with this distraction called multi-tasking? Well I think the answer may well be on the question. I think often we are looking for distraction. The flitting action of moving from media to media may ensure we don't get bored, it also ensures that we do not get stuff done as quickly and effectively as we otherwise would.

Today is a day of prayer and fasting for the members of my church. If we believe these disciplines are significant in Kingdom terms then we should not be surprised why if "all hell" is let lose against us as we seek to engage. What better tool than to encourage us that they can be incorporated into our normal run of life. If multi-tasking is a myth, a lie then maybe its source is the so called "father of lies". Perhaps the challenge for me is to be more disciplined on the task in hand and remove all the distractions I have created to amuse and interrupt me and focus on the task in hand. That act of discipline appears to be entirely appropriate with my aim of being a effective disciple.

How about you?