Holding two unfinished jobs is not a talent
A real multitasking example is two unfinished jobs at the same moment, like a half-heard call and a half-written reply. A full calendar is not one.
Originally published on The Growth Reads.
A multitasking example is a scene you can point at: two jobs that are both unfinished in the same body at the same moment. The test is crude on purpose. Can you name two outputs that are live right now — a call still going, a sentence still open, a chat still waiting — and see the same person holding both? If yes, you have an example. If you only have a colour-coded calendar or a story about being “good at juggling,” you have theatre.
What multitasking actually costs is a separate question, and the mechanism is well studied: every switch pays a goal-shift and a rule-reload (Rubinstein, Meyer and Evans, 2001), and an unfinished first job leaves attention residue on the second (Leroy, 2009). This piece is about the pictures. You should be able to walk through an ordinary Tuesday and say “that one counts” or “that one does not” without turning the day into a second how to focus better guide.
The research already treats the day as a sequence of visible switches, not as a personality. Víctor González and Gloria Mark sat with information workers — analysts, developers, managers — and timed the handoffs. People averaged about three minutes on a task, a little over two minutes on any one electronic tool or paper document, and about twelve minutes inside a working sphere before they jumped to another. They worked in about ten spheres a day. Those numbers are fieldwork, not a lab trick. They are also the raw material of a multitasking example: a person who cannot stay with one unfinished thing long enough for it to close.
Looking busy is not the example
Looking busy is a full calendar. A multitasking example is two unfinished jobs in one pair of hands. A stacked inbox, a back-to-back meeting block, or a desk covered in tabs can all look like proof. None of them are examples until two of those jobs are live at once. One protected hour of single-tasking can look empty from the corridor and still be the opposite of the scene this piece is about.
The mix-up is old. “I multitask” is used as a compliment in the same way “I am busy” is used as a status. Sanbonmatsu, Strayer, Medeiros-Ward and Watson (2013) measured both the boast and the skill. University of Utah students (n = 277) who reported more media multitasking and more phone use while driving scored worse on an operation-span test of executive control. About seven in ten rated themselves above average at multitasking — a distribution that cannot be true. The people most likely to offer a multitasking example as a flex were the people least able to hold two jobs without paying for it.
Why lookalikes steal the label
Lookalikes get mistaken for multitasking examples because they feel like two things, even when only one of them is a job. Music in the headphones, a dishwasher running, a compile finishing, a printer warming up — each adds motion to the room. None of them ask your executive control to load a second rule set. Rubinstein, Meyer and Evans split that load into two stages: decide to do the new thing, then activate the rules the new thing needs. A kettle does not need either stage from you. A Slack thread in the middle of a paragraph does.
The other lookalike is a chosen window. Batching mail at 11:00 is one job with a clock. It can sit next to a writing block and still not be a multitasking example, because the two jobs are not live together. The moment you open the inbox inside the writing block, the picture flips. Same tools. Different scene. That is why this is a question of recognition: the label attaches to the overlap, not to the apps.
The four scenes people misread most often are the half-heard call, the mid-sentence chat, the walking reply, and lunch-at-the-laptop. Each can be sold as “I am just being efficient.” Each fails the two-unfinished-jobs test the moment you watch the hands.
The walking-reply row is the one people argue about. Walking while a podcast plays is usually one low-load motor task plus one stream of audio — closer to the narrow exception where one of the two tasks barely needs you. Walking while you compose a reply, especially across a road or a kitchen, is two jobs. The test is still the same: are both unfinished, and do both need you?
Why the mix-up costs more than it feels like
Calling a lookalike a multitasking example hides the bill, because the switch feels free and the stress does not show up on the calendar. Gloria Mark, Daniela Gudith and Ulrich Klocke (2008) interrupted knowledge workers in a field study and watched them compensate. The interrupted people often finished in comparable or even shorter time. They also reported more stress, more frustration, more time pressure, and more effort. The deliverable still landed. The person paid in a currency no completion-time metric captures.
Sophie Leroy’s 2009 experiments added the part you can feel after the meeting ends. Switch away from Task A before it is finished and a residue of attention stays attached to A, dragging down B. Finishing A helps. Finishing A under a little time pressure to disengage helps more. Completion alone, without that release, is not a full reset. That is why “I will just check Slack for ten seconds” is a multitasking example even when the tab is closed again: the first sentence is still open in working memory.
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Ophir, Nass and Wagner (2009) then showed the habit is not training. Heavy media multitaskers — people who live in the example, day after day — performed worse on filtering and on task-switching tests in a quiet lab. Practising the scene does not build a second-job muscle. It seems to wear down the filter that would have kept the second job out. That finding is correlational: it compares people who already differ. It does not prove that the habit caused the weaker filter. It is still a bad reason to treat the example as a skill you are getting better at.
Two honest caveats. González and Mark’s times come from a small set of information workers in one organisation, observed across three days — a sharp picture of that office, not a universal stopwatch. Sanbonmatsu’s 70% “above average” figure is self-report from students, not a field census of offices. Use both as recognition tools, not as proof that your Tuesday lasts exactly twelve minutes per sphere.
Put the pictures next to the mechanism and the cost is ordinary, not dramatic. A half-heard call is a goal-shift you did not budget. A mid-sentence chat is residue you will carry into the next paragraph. A sandwich on the keys is two jobs that both get worse. None of that needs a new how-to. It needs you to stop calling the scene a talent.
Nearby ideas that are not examples
Task switching is the mechanism underneath an example, not the example itself. Background work — music, a machine, a compile — does not load a second rule set. Batching is one job with a fence around it. A silent phone on the desk still taxes working memory (Ward, Duke, Gneezy and Bos, 2017), and a notification you never open still costs (Stothart, Mitchum and Yehnert, 2015). Those are triggers. The example is what you do with them.
A design sprint is the opposite picture. In Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky and Braden Kowitz’s Sprint, a team holds one problem for five days and refuses a second live job for the week. That is why the book is a useful contrast: a week-long single-task, not a stack of half-dones.
Count live overlaps, not coloured squares. A packed day can be six single-task blocks. Music and housework are not a second job unless they need a goal-shift from you. Sanbonmatsu’s sample thought they were above average; the test said the frequent switchers were worse. Leroy’s residue does not care that a Slack glance was ten seconds. The compiler, the kettle, and the printer are other actors — you are not switching until you pick up a second unfinished output.
Ease does not retire the label. Two easy jobs may be cheaper than two hard ones (Rubinstein, Meyer and Evans, 2001). They do not become one job. Name the two outputs. If you can, you have an example.
What the evidence actually shows
González & Mark (2004): field observation of information workers. About three minutes on a task, about twelve minutes in a working sphere, about ten spheres a day. One organisation, three days.
Rubinstein, Meyer & Evans (2001): two-stage switch cost — goal shift, then rule activation. Complexity raises the tax.
Leroy (2009): unfinished Task A leaves attention residue on Task B. Finishing A, especially with a little pressure to disengage, helps more than a glance away.
Mark, Gudith & Klocke (2008): interrupted workers often still finish on time. They pay in stress, frustration, time pressure, and effort.
Ophir, Nass & Wagner (2009): heavy media multitaskers filtered and switched worse in a quiet lab. Correlational. Practice is not training.
Sanbonmatsu, Strayer, Medeiros-Ward & Watson (2013): n = 277 students. More reported multitasking, worse executive control, about 70% rated themselves above average.
Ward, Duke, Gneezy & Bos (2017): a silent phone on the desk still reduced available cognitive capacity.
Stothart, Mitchum & Yehnert (2015): a notification you never open still costs attention.
If you want the method for holding one job, start with how to focus better. This piece stays with the pictures.
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