It is official: It's not terribly smart—or efficient—to text message a friend to meet up at yoga class, listen to NPR, instant message a friend in Oregon, make sure that my dog isn't chewing anything too valuable, note that my RSS feed has some juicy gossip on Brittany Spears, and try to write a post about multi-tasking.

Who knew?

Experts say that multi-tasking is inefficient because our minds aren't designed to focus on more than one thing at a time. Still, I'd swear that I can juggle at least two or three things at once without skipping a beat.

According to an article in the New York Times, however, multi-tasking slows us down and increases the likelihood that we're going to make mistakes. (Ah, so that explains my error rate.) Our brains have an amazing capacity to absorb and process information, but they are incapable of concentrating on more than one thing at a time.

A team of scientists proved this through a series of MRI's that illustrate how our minds manage two different tasks at the same time. It turned out that our minds lose a second or so each time we switch gears.

Losing a second is no big deal when you're emailing a friend. But it may be a very big deal if you're talking on a cellphone while careening down the freeway.

The article touches on several interesting studies about multi-tasking, but the bottom line is clear: You'll be better off if you read this without trying to do try to do 10,000 other things at the same time.

Meanwhile, here are a few tips for those of us who cannot seem to do one thing at a time:

• Check your email once per hour
• Listen to soothing music (yikes, does that mean muzak??), not songs with lyrics
• Don't instant message friends while working
• Don't watch TV while working
• Don't drive while talking on the cellphone, even with a headset
• Don't let technology control your life
• Try meditation (this wasn't in the article, but it belongs on this list)