[INTJMom]

Originally Posted by Tallulah

I think NTPs generally like to multitask. Even when I'm hanging out on the forums, I'm thinking about/reading 3 or 4 things at once. Maybe it's because we're more about the process than the result?

I think you're maybe focusing too much on the "without sacrificing quality" phrase--as long as there isn't a huge dip in quality, it's no big deal.

Now, I'm not all that great at multitasking if it involves something really boring, like the bureaucratic record-keeping stuff that goes along with being a teacher.

Yes, I don't think it's honest to say that you can multi-task "without sacrificing quality". It depends on the quality necessary. But in her ad she specified "accurate data entry". Obviously that's something that has less mistakes if you don't get interrupted every 3 minutes. It's not fair to expect precision and multitasking, I don't think.

Originally Posted by ygolo

For me multi-tasking usually results in lower quality.

Actually "focus on multiple tasks at once" seems like a contradiction in terms to me since, if your attention is divided between multiple things, then it is not focused, by definition.
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I do sometimes feel a bit of a rush of believing I'm accomplishing a lot of things done at the same time by multi-tasking. But most of the time, I have had to repay the benefit by correcting for mistakes or having to completely re-do what I did earlier.
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I suspect extroverts may be more likely to say they multi-task well. Especially, the "Get-Things-Going" types (ENFP, ESFP, ENTP, ESFJ).

I think multi-tasking may be effective for "executive" job positions, that rely on other individuals to take care of the actually quality of work-- because there isn't "quality" per say in the act of delegation. It is more about getting people on tasks and getting them working, than really doing some sort of high-quality assignment of tasks.

Of course, longer-term placement of people in positions would require more care.
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Interestingly, from a computational perspective, this is similar to the problem computer architects and software engineers have in making use of multiple threads of execution.

On the one hand, you get the hardware utilization up, so that execution units, etc. aren't as idle as serial execution.

On the other hand, the programs get more complicated--you have to pay for the overhead of parallelizing the tasks, which includes synchronization between tasks and maintaining coherence of the data being shared.
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Anyone read CrazyBusy?
I suspect substitute has because of the story about using a rotary telephone.

I read about CrazyBusy online a little while ago.
"in his book he calls multitasking a “mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously.""

This was interesting:
"In one recent study, 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.” His research demonstrates that people use different areas of the brain for learning and storing new information when they are distracted: brain scans of people who are distracted or multitasking show activity in the striatum, a region of the brain involved in learning new skills; brain scans of people who are not distracted show activity in the hippocampus, a region involved in storing and recalling information. Discussing his research on National Public Radio recently, Poldrack warned, “We have to be aware that there is a cost to the way that our society is changing, that humans are not built to work this way. We’re really built to focus. And when we sort of 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.”"

And this concerned me:
"As neurologist Jordan Grafman told Time magazine: “Kids that are instant messaging while doing homework, playing games online and watching TV, I predict, aren’t going to do well in the long run.” “I think this generation of kids is guinea pigs,” educational psychologist Jane Healy told the San Francisco Chronicle; she worries that they might become adults who engage in “very quick but very shallow thinking.”"