Is Muti Tasking Overrated?

You and me both. I believe multi tasking on a PC is a definite time saver and very low risk - Compared to doing it while driving or some other life and limb threatening activity.

Not sure how to fork, is that similar to "spooning?"

LOL. I'm prepared to accept that as the gospel truth.

Yes. Ermmm. Multi-tasking. Well, I suppose it depends on the type of tasks you're doing. Driving and having a phone conversation is one thing, but I think a person would struggle to - say - write an article and practise guitar simultaneously.

Call me a spoil-sport, but a lot of what people (women, especially ) proudly consider multi-tasking isn't really multi-tasking at all, so much as it is switching between tasks rapidly and frantically - stumbling from crisis to crisis, if you will - and making a half-arsed effort (and sometimes a total hash) of each.

I've always preferred to focus on one thing at once, and give it my full attention ... at least if the quality of the outcome, rather than just "getting it done", is of any importance - which it often is.

lol ... good way to justify your inability to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously.

Curses, you figured it out. Now we have to find some other way to ruin your productivity.

Seriously, I don't multitask on anything that needs focus. It just doesn't work that well. I may switch between projects if I hit a mental block on one, but that's not really multitasking.

Now if you want to count eating dinner while chatting on forums, that's something else, but I'd call it a rather minor sort of multitasking.

Well dang, no one sent me the memo. I suck at multi-tasking.

I'm much more productive when I focus on one task at a time. That usually means no checking emails, no answering the phone, and I try to assemble any information that I'll need for the task beforehand so that I don't get distracted while searching for information online. Multitasking tends to make me FEEL like I'm getting more stuff done, but tackling one thing at a time leads to more completed tasks.

It's probably not accurate to say it lowers your IQ, but that it lowers your performance on certain cognitive tasks. You don't actually get dumber, but perform more poorly on tests, if those tests are done while you multitask.

Don't mean to burst your bubble, and perhaps multi-tasking is beyond your capability... I know that I do it nearly all of the time, and have known quite a few people that were very good at it. (I suppose it depends on how you define multi-tasking.) I like Steve's analogy, and have found similar argument useful in discussions of this sort in the past. I don't know if the mind does a rapid enough swapping between the tasks to make it seem to be simultaneous, or truly performs entirely separate threads like a multi-processor computer, and don't particularly care, because the effect is the same, just as with a computer that is multi-tasking.

Funny, but I really think that there are a lot of tasks in their lives that some would think of as single threaded instead of parallel processed (to steal a few terms from computers, where the term multi-tasking became popular).
Can you really say that driving a standard shift automobile is a single tasked process? At least on some level, it requires watching the road ahead of you, maintaining position in your lane, while simultaneously paying attention to the sound the engine makes to determine if you need to shift up or down due to engine load. You don't consciously think "listen to the engine, is it going too fast or laboring?", you automatically do it. This is at least a rudimentary method of multi-tasking. Some of the other things involved in driving may be part of a single task at a time regimen, like maintaining the proper pressure on the accelerator to stay at a given speed, or scanning mirrors and/or the sides of the road to assess whether there are "incoming" elements that you have to avoid. Yes, I know that a LOT of people have great difficulty with even this, because I see them on the highway all of the time.

Taking this farther, some people don't really seem to have much ability to perform multiple tasks seamlessly, or at least they do it poorly. They believe because they cannot do something (or recognize that they can do something), nobody else can. This mental block essentially prevents them from growing in many ways.

Personally, I have, and routinely do multi-task. That means I consciously work on several threads at a time. Whether I am focusing on each in turn with a very fast switching rate (through time division multiplexing like a single core processor would do) or perform all of the threads in parallel like a multi-processor setup is immaterial. I can and do get more than one thing done at a time. As a young man, it wasn't difficult to be reading a book, listeniing to radio or watching television, and participating intelligently in a multi-person conversation all at the same time. Used to drive my wife nuts because I could keep up with all three tasks at once. With practice and a bit of personal dedication, it wasn't all that hard. After awhile, it becomes almost automatic.
Yep, even two visual tasks at once. Peripheral vision takes care of the less critical task like "watching" tv, while central vision is used for the more difficult. Keeping track of two or more threads of conversation isn't all that difficult either, with some practice.

I think the key is like the old saw "If you don't believe you can do something, you are most certainly right."

The human mind is a wonderous thing. No matter how much hardware and software we throw at a problem, we still haven't been able to come close to the capabilities of the human mind. A well known "fact" is that most people use perhaps 5% of the capacity of the mind. Some days, I run into people that act as if they use a lot less. Occasionally I find someone that appear to be using considerably more. We are all differnet, and I think it is folly to categorically deny that it "is beyond human capability".