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Absolutely agree. Yesterday my colleague and I had to work on something with very hard deadline.I emailed my team explaining that we won't be available for calls,emails or anything else. In just 4-5 hours I've done more than it would otherwise have taken me a few days to complete.There were lots of missed calls though:)

Its all about focus and dedication. That's hard to spread over several subjects.

wouldn't it be easier to describe multi-tasking as context switching?

What we call multitasking is usually task switching, according to an article I read after a similar discussion on HN. The dividing line has something to do with only one task at a time being able to use an area of the brain. As long as one of the tasks doesn't use that area, you can multitask. Otherwise, you can physically only task switch.