Multitasking is the practice or capability of handling more than one task at a time. Although you may not want to believe it, research has shown that the human brain is not actually capable of doing two thinking (cognitive) tasks at the same time. When people multitask things that require thinking, either at the same time or alternating rapidly between them, errors go way up, and it takes far longer to get the jobs done than if they were done sequentially.

These are important skills for getting high-priority tasks completed, yet employers today say that young job applicants have short attention spans and can’t concentrate for very long. Limit distractions and interruptions.