Efficient, or not so much?

I have a sweet friend who always asks me how I get so much done in a day. My answer is always that I don't know, but I'm usually doing two or three things at once.... and that I'm extremely tired at the end of the day.



I was reading last night September's issue of my favorite magazine (truthfully, the only magazine I subscribe to that I read from cover to cover) and I found a fabulous article that got me thinking. It's by A.J. Jacobs and it's called, "Stop the Madness! One man's quest to go from manic multitasker to zen unitasker in one month flat."

Could multitasking really be madness???

An interesting quote from the article: "I've been reading a bunch of books on multitasking. It's really a life-or-death problem--no exaggeration. The culture of distraction is rewiring our brains, making us less happy, less able to connect with people and form a conscience. Multitasking makes us feel efficient. But it's an insane delusion; it actually just slows our thinking down. Our brains can't handle more than one higher cognitive function at a time. We may think we're multitasking, but we're really switch-tasking. Toggling between one task and another. First the phone, then the e-mail, then the phone, back to the e-mail. And each time you switch, there area few milliseconds of start-up cost. The neurons need time to rev up."

Is it true??? Am I really wasting time by trying to be so efficient???

It all makes sense... and yet I still feel that I must do more than one thing at a time, or I will waste my life away, despite the milliseconds in start-up costs.

I believe I will continue to listen to a book on CD on my drive to work.

I'm sure I will still fold laundry and iron (hate ironing!) while watching TV.

I'll probably still take a book or magazine to the kid's swimming lessons and glance up to see their wonderful progress every few minutes.

I'm sticking to my program of reading the Book of Mormon while I blow dry my hair.

I'll still make phone calls while I'm doing my 30 minutes of Healthy Lifestyle walking at the park near my clinic.

I just might soak up a few rays when I'm relaxing at said park and eating my lunch after my walk.

I'm convinced that even while I am paying attention to my cute Coleman and Olivia I might sneak a peek at my email, just to see if any of you make any fun comments on this or any other blog post.

And I will do my best to carry on a decent conversation with Ryan while we cook or wash dishes together.


But for now, I think I'll go snuggle up in bed and read the fabulous book I'm reading without trying to do anything else at all (except maybe eat a piece of dark chocolate here and there).

(I think I should admit that I took a break from the following tasks to do this blog post: Sharing a cute font with Ryan for his Court of Honor, commenting on peoples status updates on Facebook, chatting on Facebook with a friend, watching this hilarious mash-up video, and staring at my several loads of yet to be folded laundry trying to figure out if I could possibly type with one hand and fold with another... don't think that would work so well.)

**Are you a multitasker?