A True Tale of Multitasking

  I decided to order a book on Amazon but wanted to make certain the paperback and hardcover editions were the same. Unsure of whether the paperback edition also included the CD, I assumed checking the ISBN number might help and so went upstairs to get the book. Thinking that perhaps the CD would have it's own ISBN I decided to check and found that the CD wasn’t in the book anymore so I went back upstairs to get it. CD now in hand I tried to burn a copy of the CD in the event the paperback didn’t come with the CD. I made a couple of attempts through iTunes and it didn’t copy successfully so I tried it through Roxio. But before I could try it I had to register the Roxio software -- which I did.  That method didn’t work either so I went back to Amazon to look carefully at the information. This time I felt reasonably assured that the paperback comes with the CD so I added it to my shopping cart. I noticed that my husband had some stuff in the shopping cart and decided to ask him if he wanted me to go ahead and buy his items, too. But when I reached over to pick up my landline handset it wasn’t there. So I went into the kitchen where I had left it after a conference call. While there I nuked a cup of coffee and got an idea for an e-zine post. Motivated to get the thought down before I lost it I came back into my office with the coffee but without the phone and sat down to my computer. But having just changed e-zine software I had to look up my login. While I was looking for that login I glimpsed another login that reminded me that I needed to cancel a credit card that was attached to an automatic invoice from my domain name provider. I made a note to do so and then went through a tutorial or two for the new e-zine software. I started to create the template and realized new photos would be nice so did a Google search on where I might find good free photos. I found iStockPhoto and some good images which I downloaded to My Pictures. I then had to upload the photo to the e-zine site but realized during my photo search I had navigated away from my e-zine software url. I hit the “back” button but doing so took me not to my e-zine site but to Amazon and the photo of the book I was going to order. I realized I needed to call my husband about whether he wanted me to order the stuff he had in the shopping cart so I reached over to pick up the phone, which still wasn’t there and…

 

You can imagine how the rest of this goes. I tell this story on myself for three reasons.

 

1. Multitasking happens to everyone -- even people like me who spend a significant amount of time harping on people to stop it.
2. It's mind-bogglingly dumb to think we are getting things done more efficiently by doing them this way. That whole scenario took about 40 minutes and I finished not one thing. Not. One.
3. Multitasking is a bad habit we can stop by reminding ourselves to slow down and focus.

Here are some ways to remember to slow down, focus and work on one thing at a time.

1. Talk to yourself. Remind yourself out loud to finish one task.
2. Put a note with the word "focus" or "one thing at a time" somewhere you will see it throughout the day. Perhaps on sticky note on the the perimeter of your computer screen, or on a bright 3x5 card.
3. Pick an object, like a paperweight, stone, or small knick knack and every time you look at it think of focusing on one thing at a time.
4. Get a MotivAider, and use the vibration of it to do a self-check on whether you are focusing or multitasking.

Most of us know multitasking isn't a good thing but often we do it out of habit. The ideas above are simply cueing devices to remind ourselves of the new behavior we want to do.

The world isn't going to slow down for us so we have to get better at slowing ourselves down in the face of a million things to do.  Get comfortable with the idea that there are always going to be a million things to do and doing more than one of them at a time isn't going to shorten the list. It's just going to make us feel frantic and overwhelmed.

Now excuse me while I go place that order, or call my husband, or.....