Multi-tasking. Frankly, I’m over it.

As a woman I constantly hear how I am apparently so much more superior to men because of this ability to do a hundred things at once, but I have started to wonder about the effects this skill is having on my brain…

Before having children, it was a badge of honour to have a career, renovate a house, foster an incredibly virile relationship and whip up unexpected and creatively unique social events at the drop of a hat to entertain vast bevvies of fascinating friends.

I even believed that it was an admirable skill to have after having children and beneficial too. I could put the baby down to sleep and within one hour when I knew I should have been resting too, I could tuck the phone into my shoulder and return calls whilst putting the washing away, preparing dinner and removing staples from the timber floor that I was about to sand, all under the pretence that I was actually having some ‘me’ time by having Oprah on in the background!

But the other day as I was cleaning my teeth - do you know how much you can get done whilst mindlessly brushing your molars? I cleaned the toilet, picked up the kids clothes, rescued the bath toys from the depths of the shower recess, opened all the windows in the house to let in the fresh air and started to pack the lunches…my toothbrush still deftly doing its job with the help of my free hand. This is ridiculous I thought.

I have gone mad.

I cannot concentrate on one thing at a time.

Even at work - on the computer- I am constantly side-tracked by incoming emails and requests whilst trying to get one task finished, each email leading to a tangential task that snowballs into a major project tearing me away from what ever the original task was at hand…I know that this is part and parcel of work life but I think it has multiplied since having kids and having decreased time for oneself. In that time you do have, you try to complete a months worth of desired chores in one hour to make up for lost time and so the cycle continues into every pore of my work and play.

I’m sure I would be just as efficient if I did all these tasks consecutively, but before I know it my mind and body are onto the next thing before finishing the last and then I stop mid track and realise that I have completed task 1,2, 4, 5, and 9, but am half way through 3 and 6 and can’t even remember what 8 was!

Me time, I have revised now, is the ability to do, and enjoy, one thing and one thing only.

Its not easy, because you can read a magazine or sift through the school newsletter whilst watching a dvd!…and you can get the washing up done or the skirting boards painted during the ads whilst catching up with your TV friends…and isn’t it amazing how much you can get done whilst diligently listening to your friends on a hands free phone! When will it stop?!

I am trying…to ’stop’..that is.

I do enjoy the small things but always while enjoying other things at the same time!

I stop to smell the roses whilst walking the kids and the new puppy to the park. Did I mention we have a new puppy! I am trying to do that cliched thing of ‘being in the moment’. I never knew how hard that would be to achieve after trying so hard to always ‘achieve’. But for my own well-being now, post small babies, I am practicing.

I think I’m going to try to reduce my multi-tasking down to bi- or tri tasking! - …baby steps!

Admittedly sometimes it serves me well, but there is a limit when I stop and notice the ridiculous things I find myself doing!

Am I alone in this aftermath of a multi-tasking generation!? Is anyone else being affected I would love to know!

Sarah Lamond
Designer and mother of 2