You're sitting in a meeting. Your boss says we need to run these two marketing campaigns concurrently. You nod. It sounds like a fancy way of saying "at the same time," right? Well, sort of. But if you’re a software engineer, a lawyer, or a project manager, that word carries a specific weight that can make or break a deadline.
Most people use "concurrently" and "simultaneously" as if they’re identical twins. They aren't. They’re more like cousins. One is about things happening at the exact same microsecond; the other is about things happening within the same window of time. It’s a nuance that matters. If you’ve ever tried to download a file while streaming a movie, you’ve lived the reality of things moving concurrently.
Language is weird. We steal words from Latin—concurrere, meaning "to run together"—and then we spend centuries arguing about how to apply them to modern office life or computer processing. Let’s get into why this distinction actually changes how you work.
What Does Concurrently Mean in Plain English?
Basically, when things happen concurrently, they are occurring during the same period.
Imagine you’re a chef. You have a steak searing in a pan and a pot of pasta boiling on the stove. Are you physically flipping the steak and stirring the pasta with the same hand at the same millisecond? No. That’s impossible unless you’re a wizard. But you are managing both tasks within the same thirty-minute window. They are running concurrently.
In a business context, this happens when a company launches a product in the US and the UK during the same month. They aren't necessarily hitting the "go" button at the exact same tick of the clock, but the projects overlap. They coexist.
The Simultaneous Trap
People love the word simultaneous. It sounds high-tech. But simultaneous is a much stricter master. If two runners cross a finish line at the exact same moment, that’s simultaneous. If two people are running the same race but started at different times, their efforts are occurring concurrently.
Think of it like a highway. Two cars driving side-by-side in different lanes are moving simultaneously. Two cars traveling from New York to LA on the same day, even if one is fifty miles ahead of the other, are traveling the route concurrently.
Why Your Computer is Lying to You
In the world of technology, concurrently is a massive deal. It’s the backbone of how your phone feels fast.
Most people think their computers do a million things at once. They don't. Or at least, they didn't used to. A single-core processor is actually a master of deception. It switches between tasks so fast—thousands of times per second—that it creates the illusion of doing things at the same time. This is "Concurrency."
Rob Pike, a pioneer in the programming world who helped create the Go programming language, famously explained that "concurrency is about dealing with lots of things at once." He contrasted this with parallelism, which is "doing lots of things at once."
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It sounds like a riddle. It’s not.
- Concurrency: Handling the structure of multiple tasks. It’s about managing the "in-progress" state of several things.
- Parallelism: The actual physical execution of tasks at the same time, usually requiring multiple processors.
If you’re writing code and you want it to run concurrently, you’re organizing the logic so that the program doesn't have to wait for a slow database to respond before it starts loading the user interface. You’re being efficient with time. You’re juggling.
Real-World Legal and Contractual Impacts
Words have consequences. In law, if a judge sentences someone to "concurrent sentences," it’s a huge win for the defendant compared to "consecutive" ones.
Let's say a person gets five years for Burglary and five years for Possession.
- Consecutive: They serve ten years. One after the other.
- Concurrent: They serve five years total. Both sentences run at the same time.
It’s the same word, but the stakes are a half-decade of someone's life.
In real estate or business contracts, you might see "concurrent closing." This is where the sale of one property and the purchase of another happen together. It’s a logistical nightmare. The money from the buyer of your old house basically has to hit the account of the seller of your new house nearly instantly. If they don't happen concurrently, you might end up homeless for a weekend or owning two mortgages you can't afford.
The Productivity Myth: Can Humans Work Concurrently?
Honestly? No.
Psychologists like Gloria Mark from the University of California, Irvine, have spent years studying "task switching." We like to think we are multitasking concurrently, but our brains are actually just toggling. Every time you flip from a spreadsheet to a Slack message, you pay a "switching cost." It takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to deep focus after an interruption.
We can manage projects concurrently—meaning I have three different clients this week—but we cannot execute deep work concurrently.
When a job description asks for someone who can "handle multiple projects concurrently," what they are actually asking for is someone with high cognitive flexibility. They want someone who can stop one thing, start another, and not lose the thread. It’s a soft skill, but it’s labeled with a technical word.
Logistics and the Supply Chain Mess
The global supply chain is a masterpiece of concurrency.
Think about a car. It has about 30,000 parts. Those parts aren't made one by one. They are manufactured concurrently across dozens of countries. The tires are being molded in Thailand while the microchips are being etched in Taiwan and the steel is being forged in Ohio.
If these processes didn't happen concurrently, it would take decades to build a single Ford F-150. The magic is in the overlap. The risk, however, is that if one concurrent thread breaks—like a ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal—the whole system feels the ripple.
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How to Use the Word Without Sounding Like a Robot
If you want to sound smart but natural, use concurrently when you’re talking about schedules or systems.
Avoid it in casual conversation about dinner. Don't say, "I'm eating and watching TV concurrently." That’s weird. Just say "at the same time."
But in a memo? "We will be phased out the old software while concurrently onboarding staff to the new platform." That’s a perfect use. it implies a transition period where two things exist in the same space.
Concurrency in Gaming: A Different Beast
Gamers deal with this constantly without knowing the term. In an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online game), the server has to handle thousands of player inputs concurrently.
If two players try to pick up the same legendary sword at the exact same time, the server has to decide who got there first. This is called "concurrency control." If the game's code isn't written to handle these overlapping requests, the server crashes or the item dupe glitches happen.
Programmers use things called "locks" or "semaphores" to manage this. It's essentially a digital velvet rope that says, "I know you're all here at once, but only one of you gets to touch this specific piece of data right now."
Misunderstandings and Nuances
There’s a weird middle ground where people use "concurrent" to mean "agreeing."
While "concur" does mean to agree, "concurrently" almost always refers to time. If you say, "I concur with your assessment," you're agreeing. If you say, "Our views are concurrent," people might look at you funny. It’s technically okay, but it's clunky. Stick to time-based usage for the adverb.
Another common slip-up is thinking concurrently means "repeatedly." It doesn't. Things that happen over and over are "recurrent."
- Recurrent: It keeps happening (like a bad dream or a leaky pipe).
- Concurrent: It's happening alongside something else.
Actionable Takeaways for Your Professional Life
Understanding the depth of this word isn't just about winning at Scrabble. It’s about clarity in communication. When you use it correctly, you eliminate ambiguity.
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Audit your "Concurrent" Projects
Look at your to-do list. Are you actually working on things concurrently, or are you just distracted? True concurrency in a professional setting means you have systems in place—like a project management tool—that allow multiple streams of work to move forward even when you aren't looking at them.
Clarify Your Contracts
If you are signing a deal, look for this word. Does a "concurrent" deadline mean everything must be finished by the same date, or that the work must happen during the same window? If you're a freelancer, make sure your "concurrent" clients don't have "exclusivity" clauses that forbid you from working for others at the same time.
Optimize Your Workflow
In business operations, look for "sequential" tasks that could be "concurrent." If Step B doesn't strictly require Step A to be finished, do them both at once. This is how you "compress" a schedule. It’s the secret to moving fast without breaking things.
Check for Logic Gaps
When explaining a process to a team, ask: "Do these happen in sequence or concurrently?" That one question can save hours of confusion. It forces people to visualize the timeline.
Ultimately, concurrently is a word about harmony and overlap. It’s the recognition that the world doesn't happen in a straight, single line. It happens in layers. Mastering those layers is how you get ahead.
Stop worrying about doing everything "simultaneously." You don't have to hit every button at once. You just have to make sure the right processes are running side-by-side, moving toward the same goal. That's the real power of working concurrently.
Verify your project timelines today. Identify one task that is currently waiting for another to finish and ask if they can instead be started together. That is how you apply this concept to real-world efficiency.