Your brain does not have the hardware to do more than two things at once

An interesting paper just published in the journal Science investigates how the brain's motivational system allocates resources when it attempts to pursue more than one goal at a time.

"Using brain imaging, we observed that the left and right MFC (medial frontal cortex), which jointly drive single-task performance according to expected rewards, divide under dual-task conditions: While the left MFC encodes the rewards driving one task, the right MFC concurrently encodes those driving the other task."

They observed the same division of labor in the lateral frontal cortex, with both sides coordinated by the anterior frontal cortex. That may be more detail than you want; here is the important conclusion:

"The human frontal function seems limited to driving the pursuit of two concurrent goals simultaneously."

In other words, your brain cannot properly handle doing more than two things at once. Obviously, this is a serious safety consideration when engaged in tasks as diverse as driving and slicing tomatoes. You may enjoy reading an interesting commentary on this study for the lay reader. Meanwhile, please be safe.