Category: multi-tasking

Are You a Multi-Tasker By Choice?

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 8 Comments
Hua Hin, Thailand

I love people who can multi-task.

I mean full up, full attention multi-taskings. Feed babies and do someone’s taxes and wash laundry at the same time. Someone who can use three full-sized computer screens at one time. Someone who walks the dog and listens to “Learn French in Three Days” on headphones while running through the IMDB movie database on their phone for a Japanese foreign film to watch when they get home.

Most of us do a fairly good job at multi-tasking. Cooking dinner while thumbing through an iPad while holding a conversation with someone in the next room is my idea of tasking to the N-th degree.

But more often I multi-task by accident. And it happens all the time.

Start working on a craft. Run upstairs to get some sort of supply. Notice the dryer is finished. Switch the laundry. Pull out the kitchen towels from the dry pile because the kitchen drawer is empty. Find the part for the craft. Answer the phone. Talk for 20 minutes. Pull out the embroidery kit you told your caller they could borrow so you don’t forget. Go into the frig for a soda. Eyeball yesterday’s leftover pizza. Heat it up in the micro. Let the dog out. Go to the bathroom. Notice you are low on toilet paper. Add it to the grocery list whiteboard. Grab the part you needed for your craft and take it back downstairs where this whole thing started.

Is this multi-tasking? Or is it A.D.D.?

I can’t tell you how many times I find myself swirling down this whirlpool. I do it all the time. I make my husband nuts.

~I~  see it as getting multi things done in one fine sweep. ~He~ considers it distracted and unproductive movements. That I’d get so much more done if I finished what I started when I start it.

Who wants to do laundry all day one day? Who can sit for eight hours and do one craft? I mean, even ~I~ have a hard time power watching more than six or seven TV episodes in one sitting.

I believe I do multi-task. I watch TV while I work on the computer. Listen to music while I balance my checkbook. Talk on the phone and sew buttons on shirts at the same time.

I think my husband just doesn’t get what multi-tasking really is.

 

 

I’m Making Myself Crazy

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 26 Comments

I am one of those people who is always doing something while doing something else.

Before you congratulate me on my multi-tasking abilities, let me assure you. I am beginning to hate it.

Take Saturday, for instance. I was watching Downton Abbey, writing my Sunday blog, plus I had a bin of cardboard I needed to cut to size, went into the kitchen and scooped some ice cream, and my phone was nearby just in case I need to look up something or text someone.

Why can’t I just sit still and watch a chapter or two of the telly? Or just sit and write a blog? 

I tend to blame my senior-onset A.D.D. The older I get the less I can sit still for any length of time. I have already talked to my physician, so that part is just fine.

But I’m making myself crazy with all these things lined up to keep myself busy.

I’m too old to be kept so busy.

I’ve tried meditation, Valerian, and deep breathing. I’ve told myself I don’t need to keep busy every second of the day, yet everywhere I look there’s something I can be doing while I’m doing something else.

And I find myself thinking why not kill two birds with one stone? Sew the holes in my socks or research artists while a movie babbles in the background? And since I’m already online, why not check out other blogs,  work on updating my website, look for a new recipe for Apple Crisp, and type a text to a friend? I can also paint my toenails and let them dry while I’m surfing and watching TV. I’m not moving around, after all ….

I’m making myself crazy.

So yesterday I decided to stop multi tasking. Just for the day. I had a sinus headache anyway, so I just aimed to do nothing.

At 8:30 pm I couldn’t take it anymore and went online, wrote this blog, turned on my iPad and downloaded a game, plus edited the story I wanted to post. That was after I took time to find some ambient music on YouTube.

It’s midnight now. It didn’t work.

I truly have to start tackling tasks one task at a time. Concentrate on one thing at a time. It’s okay if a half dozen ideas and projects bombard me at one time, but I have to learn to prioritize and not stress myself out by trying to do three, four, or five things at once.

Do you have multi-tasking-itis? Do you do ten things at one time? If you do, let me know how you do it. If you don’t, let me know how you do it as well. 

Like I said earlier, the task list is getting longer and my attention span is getting shorter. And I’m not getting any younger.

I just can’t keep up with myself anymore …