How many things can you do at the same time?

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Lyndon Johnson said once that Gerald Ford was so inept that he couldn’t “fart and chew gum at the same time”. In the milder version of “walk and chew gum” the dictum has remained in the American parlance.
The fact came to my mind while observing the little dog on my bed who sleeps, snores, scratches her belly and… wags her tail at the same time, She probably also dreams.
Now, I am interested to know how many activities we can execute simultaneously.
These capacities vary along the degree of stress, and tiredness.
As for myself I certainly can walk and chew gum at the same time.
I propose some tentative lists of activities that can be executed .
Knit , generally for a woman, look at TV, talk an monitor the children, someone can also peruse a newspaper.
If you drive you can smoke, talk on the mobile and perhaps do some necking with your companion, even if all this thing made together put you at some risk.

Just today i was walking while, reading a book, and listening to headphones.
(Also had an occasional cig)

I always have music on whilst on the net as well as watching the TV news and eating chocoloate.

Strangely, though I can't seem to sneeze without stopping doing everthing else.

I can talk on the phone, watch TV, and draw all at once without losing concentration on any one of them.

1 thing

Approximately 20, it depends on the time of day, how much sleep I have had the night before, and how well nourished I am. If conditions are favorable, I can rock and roll. If I'm tired, hungry, dehydrated, or hypothermic, I will still attempt to do as many tasks at once as before, but some items will fall out of my crosscheck and reduce my overall effectiveness.

Obviously I don't have 20 hands so I can't do all 20 things simultaneously, but I can switch rapidly between them while keeping awareness of the progress and situation of each particular task, as well as the changing priorities of the various tasks as the tactical situation evolves. In my profession, successful multitasking is an essential, perhaps critical, skill.

Trades requiring simultaneity of interventions:
acrobat
cook
surgeon
broker?

All these capacities for multiple actions would not be possible without some kind of decentralization of will allowing some of these actions to be performed in semiautomatic fashion, "delegated" to different parts of the brain.
I am inclined to think that this is the reason why some anomalies in our "wirings" produce akwardness in behaviour in autistic people.

Also some reflections. If something wrong happens when you take from the stove a pot of boiling water you may have to decide if you are going to burn your hands or much greater extensions of your body. You will probably decide in a millisecond, but you will prefer to burn only your hands.

I can eat and read.
I can't read or write whilst listening to music (even if it has no lyrics). I can technically listen to music whilst walking but I have to concentrate a lot, otherwise I don't hear the music.

not to go into any details...one

If there's any distractions I can't do anything. I try to focus on one item at a time.

Generally only one, although I can eat while I am reading or watching TV, & stim while I am reading.

One, although I have been known to listen to music whilst working on an electronics project.

Ed Almos

I can handle several things at once if I am familiar with all of them. One new thing will consume my entire concentration.

I am listening to music as I type.

It depends on the day. I vacillate between extreme multitasking (listening to music, watching a movie and writing a paper) and being unable to keep my mind on anything at all.