How many activities can a human brain consciously perform at one time? I once heard it was around 7 things. Right now the activities going on in my head are:
Typing and the mechanics involved in that.
Watching what I type and absorbing peripheral vision.
Listening to my typing, people approaching my cube, other office noises.
Thinking about this immediate post, and thinking about what my next project is.
Eating and breathing; basic life activities.
And that's all right now. It's not even 7 activities. If someone breaks into a varying discussion nearby that I can hear, that begins to infiltrate my activities. If a phone rings, it jumps into the list.
I would say I'm at my limit with 5. Any more and I get distracted and lose my concentration on the task at hand. Conversations are the worse for me. I break what I'm doing, dive into the conversation, then move onto projects associated with the conversation, ignoring the earlier, and ultimately unfinished, project.
Some call the ability to do all those things (and sometimes more) "multi-tasking" but I've read some opinions that multi-tasking actually makes people take longer to accomplish projects. I like to hunker down and go through projects; I like having a tangible project at the end of the day.
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