Do you multi-task?

More aptly, can you multi-task? Some people can’t. Some do it now and then. Some are able but unwilling. Where do you fall on the spectrum?

I’m of the able-but-unwilling school. I used to multi-task more than I do now, and age has something to do with that. But it’s a positive thing. I’m wiser now. I choose now to multi-task less. That said, it’s taken me a while to get to this point.

I’ve always maintained that women are better able to multi-task than men. I swear it’s in the genes – right along with the ability to mother a child. Not all women have children, but they’re born with the tools to do it. Same with multi-tasking, because being a mother requires that. Children don’t wait patiently while their mothers finish other tasks. What they need, they need now. Same with the other jobs a woman does. Those jobs make time demands, too, and the only way to get it all done is to do more than one thing at once. We can do that. We can do it well.

Much has been made of women with outside jobs who still do the bulk of the work at home. I like to think this is slowly starting to change. My sons all cook and help out with child care; I’m sure many men now do. But still, when a child is sick, women are the ones who most often stay home. Yes, our career paths may take a hit, but isn’t it a tribute to us that we do it anyway?

All too soon the kids grow up. My first empty-nest year, I would stand in the kitchen at the end of the day trying to think what I was supposed to do. The idea that I could actually relax and take a few minutes for me was foreign. Oh, I got used to it. I would read or knit and watch the news until it was time to make dinner, and then, while dinner was cooking, I folded laundry or talked on the phone or payed bills. So I was still the multi-tasker, albeit with fewer tasks to multi.

Then I found that it was pleasant to watch tv without knitting at the same time.

And that it was nice to be able to talk on the phone without having to fold laundry at the same time.

And that my taste buds didn’t want a dozen flavors, but craved “clean” food (like the grilled steak in the photo above).

Oh, I still multi-task. Just like when my kids were little, there are times when I have no choice. Increasingly, though, there are times when I do have a choice, and, in those times, I opt for purity of experience.

 

How about you?