My students swear they can do it.   Many managers ask if their employees can do it, but the fact of the matter is, It can’t be done.  Check out this article The Myth of Multi-Tasking by Christine Rosen. She finds an amalgamation of new research that shows that multi-tasking reduces performance, quality, and drops IQ (in an interesting study). I’m sold, however I would like to the authors of these studies why it seems that some people work better with background music on.