Myth of Multitasking

This spring, Minitex Reference Outreach and Instruction is presenting a series of webinars on “Spring Renewal and Wellness” starting with Kristen Mastel’s popular session on mindfulness: Insights and Practical Tips on Practicing Mindful Librarianship to Manage Stress, then Jennifer Hootman presents Health & Wellness, a guide to finding trustworthy health information in Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM), followed by Jody Gray’s session on Identifying and Responding to Microaggressions that will give attendees tools for recognizing and confronting microaggressions. This time of year is always busy for Reference Outreach and Instruction as we visit many classrooms providing instruction on History Day research. It’s a time that makes me ponder mindfulness and work/life balance more than, say, during the summer months when I don’t have to travel as much for work. Multitasking becomes a commonplace event during busier times. For me, it makes me feel as though I am able to stay on top of my work and my to-do lists. But I often wonder if it really is helping me or hurting me to multitask. I recently read an article about this very subject. “The Myth of Multitasking: Longing to Be Absorbed Wholly,” by Courtney Martin from onbeing.org really helped shape my idea of multitasking. Martin’s experience of multitasking was very similar to my own:

“At the end of a day spent flitting around the Internet without committing to one task for an extended period of time, I often feel jittery, as if I’ve been throwing back espressos on an empty stomach.”

While Martin does not have any great revelations or tools to effectively beat back that jittery feeling, she does offer consilience in knowing that there are many reasons for multitasking and that I am not alone in struggling with multitasking. I would prefer to have a deeper focus on one single thing at a time, but it may not be up to me if that can happen. I think I will register for Kristen’s Mindfulness webinar.