I'm not going to lie - multi-tasking is something I've considered a great skill of mine. Part of this may be due to the fact that I am female (studies have shown women to be better multi-taskers than men), but the rest is just God-given talent. I can cook supper, feed the baby and make the grocery list all while showing my 3 year old my best dance moves to the latest "Fresh Beat Band" hit. I. am. Awesome.
Or am I?
Surely, being able to do so many things at once is a blessing, right? Maybe not as much as I had thought. In fact, a multi-tasker can be downright irritating to the world around them. You see, a multi-tasker feels empowered by the fact that they are getting so much done. Unfortunately, they have so many pots on the stove, they don't realize they are not giving enough attention to any of the pots. And while yes, they are getting a lot done, they aren't necessarily getting things done well. Especially when some of those tasks involve other humans.
Case in point: Today, I found myself lucky enough to be at the store of my wireless provider. A friendly young man was assisting me and left for a short time to transfer my contacts to a different phone. Having gone through this before, I knew this took a good minute to do, but was confident he would return as soon as it had finished. Imagine my surprise when I discovered he had begun to help someone else while he was waiting for my phone to finish. Unfortunately (for me), the gentleman he was now helping required more time than it took to transfer my contacts. The store employee was probably patting himself on the back for being such a great multi-tasker but as time wore on, I was wanting to do something more akin to smacking him upside the head. While I was waiting, I noticed a promotional sign hanging on the wall that mentioned how easy it would be to multi-task with some of the newest apps on your phone. That's when it occurred to me - perhaps we shouldn't be so proud of our multi-tasking. Perhaps we should do our best to stop multi-tasking. Perhaps the very thing we thought was making us awesome is actually making people want to cause us bodily harm. Think what would happen if once in awhile we hit the mute button on the T.V. to listen to the silly story our child is telling us. Or how much faster we could finish that project we're working on if we checked our email once we'd finished instead of every time we hear the "new message" bell ding. Finish going through the drive-through and then update your Facebook status, and of course, help one customer at a time. :-) If we all stop what we're doing and give focus and attention to the task at hand (particularly if that task involves another human) I think we will all discover that we have been missing things all along. Part of living your happiest life is living in the present - multi-tasking prevents us from doing this.
Action step: Notice yourself today - how many times do you catch yourself multi-tasking?
