I Can do it All Right Now!

The Reality

Life is busy. No matter who you are, you must recall some point in your life where you needed to do more than one thing at the same time right away. Everything is urgent and the only way to get everything done is to do more than one thing at a time. What does that mean for our society as a whole?

Technology has made us get used to speed. Fast food, microwave diner, high speed internet, cell phones, instant messaging and driving over the speed limit are a part of our everyday lives. In the home life, managing a household, taking care of children, running errands, paying bills and more creates the never ending busy day of a stay at home mom. In the work world it’s pressing deadlines, running late for meetings, and grabbing lunch in between the presentation and the next important call. It’s no wonder we develop habits of talking on cell phones while driving and eating while running. Does anyone stop to take a breath anymore?

The Problem

The demands of everyday make many of us feel that we can’t devote time to only one task. The bad thing about that is, if we cannot give our full attention to one thing at a time the quality of the tasks done are not the best that they could be. In the time it takes to complete one task, we sometimes end up with two half finished tasks. A part of you might feel better knowing that you gave your attention to both things. The problem is, neither task was completed.

That may not be true in all cases. Some people have the gift of adequately attending to multiple things at the same time and get things done that way. Sometimes the element of distraction helps us focus on completing what is in front of us. Taking care of more than one thing at a time gives us a sense that we now have less things on our to do list. Is it really that things are done quicker, faster or better if we multi-task? Or, is the reality that we as a society are so driven to rush, that if we feel that we can not take the time to do one thing first and the other later. Could it be that multitasking is the illusion of time saved?

The Solution

I guess it depends on the person and what they have to do. Multitasking can save time, it’s true. I think, however, that we are so task orientated and focused on the end result that we don’t enjoy our lives enough. We also could probably do certain things with better quality if we focused on one task at a time. Every once in a while we need to slow down. It is great to be productive, but being stressed to the point that you can’t eat or drive without something else in your hand is not the way to live.

The realistic approach is to say no sometimes and only take on what you can really do. If you can handle a long to do list with minimal stress, that’s great. If you find that things never get truly finished because you are always half doing them, you should slow down and reevaluate the approach. If you don’t honestly benefit from multitasking, maybe you should stick to doing one thing at a time. Take a deep breath and give it a try.

What kind of multi-tasker are you? Take the poll to find out.