In favour of multitasking, or making a blessing of women's burden

I am a multitasker, so let's be clear that I write this with the benefit of being highly-experienced in juggling numerous tasks simultaneously. Not always well, I grant you, but with enthusiasm and dedication. So, the recent New York Times opinion piece by author Oliver Burkeman (who is trying to sell his book on the evils of multitasking) was particularly infuriating.

My relationship with multitasking is - like most human traits - layered with personal, societal, cultural, and historical intricacies. As enthusiastically as I write a story to deadline while listening to a podcast on quantum physics, top up my dog's snacks and take phone calls from real estate agents, there is also the heavier, darker weight of obligation. I enthusiastically embrace a reality that I have little say in, ultimately. I don't earn enough, nor have enough consistency in my work, to justify a personal assistant to take my calls, entertain my pets or liaise with agents on my behalf. I certainly don't have anyone to do my cleaning for me, walk my dogs or transcribe my interviews. So, as a freelance writer, if I'm going to fulfil my professional obligations and - hope of hopes! - get more work, then I have to juggle tasks.

I could pare it down, as a male writer recently demanded of readers in a privileged, pompous opinion in the New York Times. I could write my story, do my research and hack away at the keyboard in monastic silence. I could let my podcast app go stale as I force myself to listen to the sounds of my neighbours fighting, dogs barking in the park down the road, and children screaming at their parents outside the nearby supermarket. I could vacuum and mop while I don't listen to my beloved "Moving Moments" podcast, discovering the lives and battles of elite ballet dancers and revelling in their memories of a groundbreaking performance or simply healing from a severe ACL injury. To what end, though?

To be "more present", "more mindful"? Perhaps. More miserable, though, I'd proffer. Whether Marie Antoinette ever wailed "Let them eat cake!" or not, that same ludicrous ideal of allowing peasants to eat cake when they are starving is akin to the demand that women do nothing but one single task at a time.

According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, 91 percent of women with children (without paid employment) spend at least an hour on household chores compared to men with children. This increases for employed women, who spend nearly 2.5 hours a day on housework, while their lazier male counterparts spend merely 1.6 hours on the same chores. The audacity of men demanding that everyone do one task at a time is profound, if you consider that while women are still cooking, paying bills, folding laundry and trying to schedule an overdue doctor's appointment in that additional hour, men can lie on the couch and fulfil their singular task of watching soccer.

Why should we do it in silence? What sort of mindful enlightenment will come of abstaining from listening to Carly Rae Jepsen's latest album or blasting house music while we scrub the bathroom? The real problem men seem to have with multitasking is that women are both burdened with it and seemingly very good at it, if various studies are anything to go by. The consensus seems to be that women are no better at it on an empirical basis, we just have to do it, so we get on with it.

So, what is the argument for giving our attention to single tasks? It appears to be some misguided idea that we'll achieve some sense of Buddhist-style enlightenment from not being distracted by noise of any type. It's an idea promoted in yoga, too. The concept of dharma and duty, which is seen as a selfless dedication to serving others. Women have historically, as Hindu scholars have since pointed out, been burdened with significantly more duties of service - dharma - than men in the name of enlightenment. Will we fulfil a single task to greater quality if we are not distracted by any other stimulation? Perhaps, but the jury is out on that front. It seems to differ between individuals and the context.

I've always sought music as a balm and an accomplice. I can tune it out as easily as I give my full attention to it, because I'm human and my brain is hard-wired to filter through a cacophony of sensory stimulation in a modern, urban environment; it's the only place I've ever known. There's a reason many people find ambient soundscapes, even ASMR, a necessary sleep aid. There's an enormous psychological comfort in being lulled, beyond what we can intellectually grasp. If I've got several stories on deadline, a major decision to make in terms of housing, and a pile of laundry waiting to be hung out, then I will put Aphex Twin's album of ambient music on, or perhaps Amon Tobin. The dualling nature of music with the necessary focus on the task at hand makes me work even harder to mentally spotlight the task I'm doing amid the noise.

At the end of the day, what use is perfecting mindfulness for its own sake? At what cost do we achieve this monastic, minimalist success? I'd argue that the cost is joy, and life is short. Women are burdened with shame as equally as we are burdened with the necessity of multitasking. Not only have we been shamed for multitasking and not doing everything wonderfully, but now we're shamed for multitasking at all? If the choice comes down to multitasking and achieving mediocre results while shaking my booty to Beyonce or achieving a singular, entire focus on putting a single, ripe pea in my mouth and chewing it four times on repeat until I've eaten a salad in bristling silence, then the choice is easy. You can have your (toxic male version of) mindful single-tasking. I'm going to shrug off the shaming and embrace joy through the blessing and (primarily women's) burden of multitasking, instead.