WOMEN AND MULTITASKING

Neetu B. Yadav
Lecturer, Civil Engineering Dept., B.V.P.I.T [D.S], Umrakh / Bardoli/Surat, Gujarat, India

Abstract: With the development of the nation and the growth of our country day by day
the concept of multitasking is becoming a need of the society to pursue our duties and
requirement to be with the time. But this particular concept is most common in today’s
modern women as they are the tough competitors for the male dominated society by
fulfilling all her duties towards her family. She is working in the office as well as for her
family too. This paper covers how women’s multi-tasking concept is now in days become
the demand and more oblivious with the coming out of the concept of ‘working women’ or
‘new women’. To balance between the professional and personal lives the multi-tasking
quality help them so they can rock in each and every field of the life.

Keywords: Multitasking, Management, Quality of work, Working Women.

INTRODUCTION
I.
In the modern work environment multitasking is very common; its productivity
effects remain underexplored. Furthermore, women are better at multitasking is almost
universally accepted and have been proved by many ways and with the scientific
evidence and research. This paper covers the study of multitasking and how it helps the
Modern women, explained with an example of a woman at the mountains of success and
is also good at looking after her children besides husband and other family members if
in a joint family. Women can balance their professional work and homely chores unlike
men. This paper covers the review study of how women can strike an equal balance
between their professional and personal life with the help of their multitasking ability
and how they perform better when allotted multiple tasks at a time. Studies show that
women can attempt to perform two or more correlated tasks either simultaneously or
quickly alternating between them. A multitasking woman is a lady who is having the
ability to handle multiple tasks without decreasing the quality of the result. Being a
multitasking person is not the issue but when you fail to handle the number of tasks
which are to be done promptly then the problem arises.

A) Multitasking and Working Environment: (Work-Life Balance)

Work-life balance doesn’t mean an equal balance. It means the capacity to schedule the hours
of professional and personal life so as to lead a healthy and peaceful life. It is not an alien
concept. It emphasizes the values, attitudes and beliefs of women regarding their age to work
in organizing and balancing their work and personal life. When a woman achieves a

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successful work-life balance, she has job satisfaction and becomes highly committed and
productive and succeeds in her career. From the scenario around, I can say that in today’s
modern era women are working like computers, multitasking uses a lot of our short term
memory. She has to remember all important aspect of all active works. Women in India have
barred the barriers and built bridges in the professional plat forms. To balance work-life she
has to focus on two main aspects, Achievement and Enjoyment. This means that a woman
should be able to have job satisfaction (Enjoyment) and at the same time grow up in her
career (Achievement). When a working woman is able to achieve and enjoy her professional
and personal life, it means she has a positive work-life balance. Let's see a good example:
when you are writing a report, someone asks you how to use a hand phone. Meanwhile, the
other wants you to make a decision about an important problem. All right, there are three jobs
you have to finish at once. Usually, you will stop your report and help your friend as well as
think and then make the decision. After finishing those two jobs, you continue with the
report. So we can say multitasking is a term associated with multiple works which can be
done at a time. We can say multitasking is the ability of an individual to perform more than
one task at the same time. Taking multiple works in hands at a time can save time but it
requires sharpness and presence of mind so that errors can be avoided. It’s an effective
method of time management. Since we are in the world of 21st century, we all want to rush
and be the best at performance. Women can battery manage her Personal as well as
professional life with her multi tasking ability which is more obvious for new Women . They
can have ability to manage her routine tasks like helping kids for homework completion
while the washing machine is started to wash clothes and something cooked on the gas stove
is something very common to see in the Family works. We Indians are blessed by the concept
of multi-tasking with our Goddess Durga and other Creator having several pairs of hands that
are recognized to perform various works. Similarly our Goddess also blessed women with the
quality of multi-tasking and that is why, it is very common to see women doing multitasking,
like responsibility of children, household workouts, social relations or family relations.
During travelling also women’s compartment of Mumbai’s local trains are often seen that
women are cutting vegetables during their return journey from work place to home and they
are utilizing the time of journey. This help them to manage a few more free moments at home
with the family. We can also see the professor of a college preparing power point
presentation for the lecture/conference (she is going to attend) on her laptop while she is
taking her lunch during her journey in a train or plane.

Figure 1: Multitasking women

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment

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A) How Multitasking help????
Ability of multitasking is the reason which makes women great leaders. Women are
blessed with special quality to deal with Juggling work, family, household, and personal
responsibilities, To work in complex environments with many variables and competing
objectives at stake, and coming up with solutions for issues that have many different angles
we’ve become particularly skilled. The ability in balancing the personal and professional life
helps their effectiveness on works and train their mind to remember several works to be done
together.

When a woman is following the above strategies regularly, she would be a successful
professional as well as an outstanding family maker. Generally women can organize and set
her priorities as per the demand.

III. Mary Kom: A Perfect multitasker.

Work-life balance is the maintenance of a balance between responsibilities at work and at
home. Women are good at multitasking, for example - they are good at looking after their
kids besides husband and other family members if in a joint family. Women have a
considerable balance between the work and personal life. Mary Kom becomes five-times
World Amateur Boxing Champion and ever since her legacy is continuing and is still
counting. Meantime, she got married and had two twins; however, that didn’t stop her from
the quest of achieving the professional goals. She personifies a master figure and portrays a
pivotal character, who knows how to maintain a balance between personal life and
professional career single-handedly. She excelled in sports even though she is mother of 2
children. She nurtured them along with practice and spent time for her husband.

Source: http://blog.jagranjoshshop.com/mary-kom-an-inspiration

These days, multitasking is a prime requirement to sustain in the modern business

world and women who can manage their professional and personal life well can get a good
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success - graph. Performing more than one thing at a time can increase efficiency,
productivity, free up more time and in some cases, save money. By understanding the
benefits of multitasking, you can determine whether it’s a good idea for you and your
particular situation or line of work.
C) Multi-tasking, an effective tool of time management:
Multi-tasking is the only way which helps you to complete your tasks and helps to
manage your time. I always strongly believe that the women who can able to manage her
time effectively they can prove to be successful at their own areas so we can say its scientific
art of the time management. This depends upon one’s perception towards the concept. But an
understanding of the different aspects of multi-tasking makes it clear that it is more or less a
management concept for it is based on the principles of planning, organizing, coordinating
and performing.
 Planning: Planning mean to make schedule for your entire activities for your days,
weeks, months and long term and their proper arrangement that helps to give priority for
the most important tasks so you can able to do everything on time and with your entire
attention which make the work qualitative. It involves enlisting of the tasks,
determination of the objective, time frame, the available resources and the ways to do it.
In other words, it defines what is to be done, why, within what time period, with what
resources and how?
 Organizing and coordinating: The twin-concept refers to a systematic arrangements and
integration of inputs, materials or resources. At this stage a link is established between
various inputs or activities or the resources. All the inputs once brought together lead you
towards an easy and smooth performance of the actual task planned. At this stage you
also tend to control and command the future actions with the planned, organized and
coordinated elements. Thus a ground for actual action is crested.
 Performing: At this stage, you accomplish the actual task with the help of previous
planning, organization and coordination.

IV. NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF MULTITASKING

It has been proved through several experiments that multitasking is not advantageous always
rather it also proves to be harmful for human health. Some of its bad effects are shown:
 LACK OF FOCUS: Performing several tasks at a time, for instance, talking on the phone,
checking email and writing a report, one can lose the focus adequate foe one task at a time.
Too many distractions hinders the concentration, which leads to delay in getting back to
single task , finding the flaw in the loop, and recreating the thought pattern. Multitasking
doesn’t allow the brain to rest between the tasks leading to waste of time in refocusing on
the duty to be performed as the need of the hour
 MEMORY DETERIORATION: Multitasking can to over-stimulate the functioning of the brain.
Constant interruptions by co-workers, phone calls, or customers, in the middle of a project
one is working on, one risks forgetting the details required to comprehensively finish the
task. By having too much information deluged at the same time, one's brain cannot
differentiate between what is important and what isn't, which negatively affects the
memory.
 INCREASE IN STRESS LEVELS: An attempt to perform numerous activities at a time can
increase the stress levels of the individual and the consequences can be Stress can be
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burnouts, employee absences, and disability claims at work. The anxiety associated with
multitasking at the work place can lead to reduction in the productivity having a negative
impact on a company's profits, especially a small business with few employees. The
women at different corporate sector have a fast paced office environment for employees to
perform their job functions properly. It can hurt morale and cause higher turnover, which
is costly to many companies.
 COST: Multitasking can help you everywhere in our life and livelihood as a economic
curse. Unnecessary and constant distractions while working on something productive can
impact the process and the solutions, ultimately affecting the profits.

V. CONCLUSION
As discussed above, one can conclude that with modernization it is mandatory for women to
balance their professional and personal life with the tact of proper management strategies and
ideas. This allows them to identify the priorities promptly and outcomes can be successfully
multitasked, not to forget, it also increases the stress level leading to decrease in the
concentration level and regression in productivity.

REFERENCES
[01] http://www.econ.core.hu/file/download/korosi/2011/peter.pdf
[02] http://users.wpi.edu/~klaw/documents/stempaper.pdf
[03] http://www.abhinavjournal.com/images/Management_&_Technology/Mar13/6.pdf
[04] http://smallbusiness.chron.com/bad-effects-multitasking-32419.html

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