French scientists have researched the brain’s ability to multi-task.  The reported research suggests that the brain can do two things and only two things simultaneously. And more tasks and our brains start making irrational decisions.

This backs up the training at The Brain Training Company where people are taught that their brain’s like to perform two functions and they learn to control that process for optimal performance.

It is interesting that the brain imaging showed that the primary task is controlled by the left frontal lobe and the secondary task is help by the right frontal lobe.  The brain switches the focus between the two hemispheres during the tasks.

It is known that women have a larger corpus callosum, the part of the brain connecting the two hemispheres, with more neural pathways.  So women are hard wired to have a better connection between the two sides.  It has been hypothesised that this maybe why women are generally better at multitasking than men.

This research would seem to back this up, as women can switch between the two tasks in the two side more easily.  Men are better at focusing on a single task, in general.  Someone once said to me that this comes from our hunter-gatherer evolution – men go and hunt for food, women manage the tasks at home.