[Xander]

Multitasking I would think would always threaten the results but I think it's a poor use of the word. Multitasking is doing more than one thing at once where as most of the time people are actually asking you to multithread. The two terms are used in describing how processors work on computers, in case you're wondering where I'm getting this from, and the difference is that multithreading is doing only one task at a time but effectively doing part of that task, then picking up another task and doing some of that, then perhaps a third task before completing the first one and so on. In such a way it is possible to maintain the quality of the work but it does require you to be able to put things on hold and keep the information in the back of your mind whilst doing other things.

The successful technique is best exemplified by how you put a computer to sleep, where it stores all of what it's doing (it's current state) into the memory and then effectively suspends any further activity. Okay perhaps hibernate would be more appropriate but meh.