Rarely have I read an article with such a perfect balance between a premise I agree with an examples I do not. But I think this illustrates something important: what constitutes a context switch is not universal. It depends on what parts of a task you need to think about.
In the kitchen, from long practice, I do not have to think about prep, technique, or washing up. There are no decisions I need to make for those tasks. They take very little attention. This frees me to spend my focus on the more abstract goals of what I want to cook, and for me it is not a context switch to wash a bowl while an onion is sauteeing. I can certainly cook while keeping the kitchen clean more efficiently than I could cook and then clean it. But when I was first cooking, it was a context switch to go from chopping an onion to chopping a carrot. Both tasks required my attention and focus.
Upon reading the title I was anticipating an article that would provide a great deal of catharsis, only to find "programming whilst listening to music" and "cleaning dishes whilst cooking"...
I'm currently wearing a number of hats in a software implementation project (project management, change management, data management, training, communications) and having to switch between is like coordinating to put down a heavy piece of furniture being carried by six people and then assigning those same six people to help pick up another piece of heavy furniture.
Or, more succinctly:
Flywheel 1 must be stopped before flywheel 2 can be started.
In the kitchen, from long practice, I do not have to think about prep, technique, or washing up. There are no decisions I need to make for those tasks. They take very little attention. This frees me to spend my focus on the more abstract goals of what I want to cook, and for me it is not a context switch to wash a bowl while an onion is sauteeing. I can certainly cook while keeping the kitchen clean more efficiently than I could cook and then clean it. But when I was first cooking, it was a context switch to go from chopping an onion to chopping a carrot. Both tasks required my attention and focus.