Cool Topic! I hope counter arguments are welcome? 😈

I think there is a time and a place for multi-tasking and I don't think it's a gender specific trait but I'd be curious about research on that if anybody has access.

As an employee I felt that I was constantly being pulled into multiple situations, meetings, tasks etc that were distractions from the task at hand and the important work that needed to be done got lost in a sea of email, phone calls and unnecessary meetings. As an employer, I'm trying to foster less multi-tasking and more "being in the zone". For example empowering people to just say no to anything that's not directly linked to their main goal for the day, week, month ... whatever. Easier said than done though.

For complex development and highly creative tasks, I believe multi-tasking is more often than not counter productive, drives lower quality output and leaves people feeling stressed and less positive about the work they're doing.

I actually posted on the topic of Finding Flow back in 2015 citing work by Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi who defined Flow as the mental state in which you’re completely focused, engaged and enjoying what you’re doing. His diagram below kind of spells it all out ..

One big "BUT" to all of this would be kids which seems to get mentioned in this thread. I imagine the needs of a child could break even the best concentration. 👶