Community Talk

Is it difficult for you to switch between tasks? Don’t you know? You can check it. Here are some suggestions.

You can take a sheet of paper; write out the whole English alphabet and then write out the numbers from 1 to 26 below each letter. Use the timer to see just how much time you spend on it. Then write the same but other way: letter, number, letter, number etc. Aren’t you surprised to see that it takes more time than to write separately -- letters and numbers? The reason is that you have to switch your focus between numbers and letters.

If you want to evaluate your abilities, go to Republican Human Problems Center at the Belarusian State University. A psychologist will give you some tasks to do and you will see an exact result.

A simple way to compare your abilities to others’ is to work in an open space with a lot of people around. You can see how much time it takes to you and to others to be back to work after an unexpected phone call.

Do you want to improve yourself in switching between tasks? There is one tip.

Try to learn a second (or third) language. Being multilingual gives your brain some remarkable advantages. The studies shows that bilingual people have more activity in certain region of the brain which is responsible for executive functions such as switching between tasks, focusing while filtering out irrelevant information, problem-solving and making decisions.