Multitasking.

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I think recent research shows that humans cannot multitask. When people think they are multitasking what they are actually doing is switching rapidly between one task and another. When they do this neither of the tasks involved are performed to a very high standard and people tend to make a lot more mistakes in performing both tasks.

I was in the post office the other day with two parcels that needed weighing.

I put the parcels on the scales and gave them to the cashier and asked for the required service. He typed in the post code for the first parcel and while the ticket was printing he went to the other machine a printed a ticket for a parcel amongst many that he had waiting for labels. Then he came back and stuck the sticker on my parcel and typed the postcode in for the second one. While that was printing he took 50p of the person behind me to pay for a newspaper. Whilst he was sticking the sticker on the second parcel his phone rang and he dealt with the call whilst taking my money. As the receipt printed out someone else came in and asked where the drinks were and the cashier pointed them in the right direction. He gave me my receipt and I said thank you and bye, as did he, whilst scanning the barcode on a newspaper. As I was leaving (after carefully putting the receipt in my pocket) he was serving another customer when the Royal Mail man came in to collect a bag of parcels whom he said hello to. Whilst.........

That is multi tasking.

The other multi tasking I can think of is (for instance) a Mum talking on the phone, whilst changing the babies nappy, whilst watching Loose Women on telly, whislt making a brew and whilst cooking breakfast on the gas stove.

Personally, the topic of multitasking is a two-sided coin; either I multitask very well, or I'm terrible at multitasking.

I can sense my specific strengths and weakness. Hence, I'm usually able to schedule, and decide accordingly; that is to avoid difficult tasks, or to focus on those times/situations where I feel I can yield top-notch results.

I've assumed that the stereotypical aspie inability to multitask well is partly related to executive function disorder and partly to it taking more mental effort to switch focus.

Training and experience with the relevant tasks can help, I've found. I did technical support for a while and was able to support one person in real time over a chat connection while talking to a second person on the phone and troubleshooting their issue, while reading and responding to an email about a third issue, and writing up three separate tickets detailing the problems and how I solved them.

To a degree, that was rapid task-switching more than true multitasking - the phone conversation took priority, with the chat-channel typing happening while I'd asked the caller to try this or that, and the email only being responded to when there were gaps in the other two conversations. And I wouldn't have been able to do it if it had been three people all talking to me over the top of each other.

EFD also, in my experience, interferes with being able to smoothly integrate multiple tasks mentally. For example, you suddenly realize you need to do several different domestic tasks in different rooms - it's not always easy to instantly come up with and follow a workflow where you pass from room to room in the most efficient manner, doing part of each task along the way until all of them are complete. It's much easier to focus on one task, do that, then switch focus to another task and do that, et cetera.