Multi tasking for software engineers, good or evil?

Alright, we are not talking about Operating System's Multi Tasking here! It is about you as a multi tasker and your view on it.

Some says, multi tasking in general increases productivity. There are alternate views that, multi tasking actually slow us down at a long run.

What do you think? Do you multi task? How is it going for you? Are there some examples you can share with us?

I shall start with mine:

After a long time, I understood the meaning of multi-tasking as,

Doing two or more things at once expecting positive outcomes from all without switching between the tasks too much!

From Gify

With this, I do not see myself a good achiever of multi tasking yet. I end up switching between tasks and eventually if the switches are too many, I feel anxious about it and it is mentally taxing.

I could find ways to collate few related tasks together so that, I do not have to switch many times and that helps to some extent. But, it is not a true multi-tasking though.

Some of the cases, I can do multi tasking effectively are:

• Listening to music while exercising in the morning.
• Listening to audio podcast when I used to drive to office before Covid locked me in.
• Taking notes(or doing something) while a big file is getting downloaded that I am waiting on.

Let us know, if you can multi-task things effectively and how is it helping you out personally and professionally. Let us also hear, if it is not working out right.