Multi-tasking

by
Patti Dickinson

There has been a lot written about the effectiveness of multi-tasking. The experts tell us that men don't do it, and are more efficient/accurate from a production standpoint. Women have that ability from birth, and it is a cellular thing. I realize that I am playing fast and loose with the science of this....

I get up in the morning and have a routine I follow. On weekdays, the path I follow through the kitchen/laundry room is the same every single day. Never varies. I get up, put my glasses on so I can find the bathroom. Then it's out to the kitchen, with an armful of laundry I turn off the front porch light, (if it's a Tuesday or a Friday the laundry bag with my husband's shirts gets heaved outside for pickup....one time the Salvation Army took it by mistake, and you cannot imagine what kind of multi-tasking efforts that took....simultaneously screaming at the woman that answers the phone while I was driving carpool, and calculating how many hundreds of dollars worth of shirts were in that bag that I had no idea of the location of....) Then I come around the corner into the kitchen and push the coffee pot button. To the hum of grinding beans, I throw that armload of laundry in the washer and start it up. Then I crank the heat up (my husband tells me I keep the house cold enough to hang meat!) and make the kids' lunches. Then out to get the newpaper, and if it's a Monday/Tuesday or Thursday, I cut the "World Watch" summary out and put it on Meghan's backpack, so she can turn that in for extra credit (I know that there are more than a few of you that think that I am over-functioning by doing that for her.....but I was always the mom that would run forgotten lunches up to school..

And so it goes. Not multi-tasking might have some benefits....maybe more focused attention is paid so there are less "errors". But when time is of the essence, multi-tasking is the way to get it done -- quick!