Multi-Tasking At It’s Finest

Hi friends and welcome back! So, I’m going to start off with a little story. There was a particular Monday in December where I found myself cooking dinner. I was also putting away groceries, making something else for my son to eat because he’s super picky, emptying the dishwasher AND feeding my daughter, who was in a highchair next to me.

Not only was it Monday, which is already a busy day of the week, but it was also December - cue the stress of holiday shopping and money management. I was ATTEMPTING to do five things at once. Can you guess what happened? My daughter was crying for her next bite, my son was crying that his food was taking FOREVER, groceries and dishes took extra long to put away and…I burned the grilled cheese. Needless to say, nothing really turned out as planned. Why? I was trying to be supermom of course, tempting fate and doing the impossible of everything at once. The point is that there are only so many things we can take on at one time. Once you hit that breaking point, you know you have reached your limit.

I must say that I am the best multi-tasker I know. I can do a LOT at once. My brain works overtime at any given moment and I am already thinking ahead of what my next action or task is going to be. I also think about the possible outcomes of any action and how it’s going to affect those around me.

From my experience with men, I have found that they cannot multitask AT ALL. This is not to say that there aren’t men out there that can’t, but I haven’t met one yet. It has been my experience that men are good at following directions, but you need to be super-specific and they can’t read minds, no matter how hard I try to be selectively telepathic.

This leads into another story. It was shortly after my daughter was born. I was nursing at the time, and super groggy from lack of sleep. My significant other offered to cook dinner. Not only was I amazed, I was super grateful because it’s not often anyone cooks for me, unless it’s takeout. I soon realized, however that it’s much more difficult to direct someone to do something that you do automatically. I literally had to lay out each direction and supper took far longer than it should have, and I was really frustrated.

I learned something about myself from that experience. I learned that you cannot expect others to think the same way you do. It’s not just men, I’m sure there are women that can multi-task better or worse than me. It comes down to the individual, and how you train your mind.

I learned early how to compartmentalize my mind into different categories so that I COULD focus on more than one thing at a time. I just need to have another set of arms to physically manage the work. I always thought that if I could clone myself, it would be so wonderful because then I really could get everything done.

There is a happy medium to multitasking. It also depends on the project I’m currently working on. If I’m writing, I need quiet time and to focus because I need my words and sentences to make sense. I also concentrate on driving only while I’m in my vehicle, although I do belt out some tunes to practice for my next karaoke song! When I’m cooking dinner, or some other menial chore, I can do a lot. Just maybe not five things at once.

❤️ SAN