One-tasking

Im officially off the beaten track. Of multi-tasking. Long ago, along with the Std XI and XII PCB course of CBSE's you had the option of choosing Math or CompScience or Home Science as another main stream option. I chose Homescience simply bcos I thought I was going the medicine way. (Ho boy was that a long time ago)

So anyway, I remember there was this page in the text book about dovetailing and multi-tasking and it made me drool. I had a bone in my body called organising even before I knew I loved it, craved it and would eventually be very good at it. All I knew was, that line in that text-book reached out and got me by my neck. Ever since then there was a word for my love for combining tasks and I got a kick out of living like that. As a mom it's been obviously very useful. I personally feel its also the other side of my laziness coin. Cram everything I need to do into the one hour before it should be done and then fall back, clapping the dust off my hands at how smart I was at not having moved a muscle before (conserving my energy) and still getting everything done. Wah!

But now. (Thank God my English teachers arent reading my blog, they'd gag at my using 'But's' at the start of every other sentence) Now I officially give up this whole multi-tasking business even though I'm quite the pro at it simply bcos I feel it makes an idiot out of me. A blubbering, scheming, focusing-so-close my vision is blurred nut. I mean why cant we just enjoy exercising when we enjoy exercising instead of making sure the rice is in the rice-cooker and the clothes are doing their round in the washer and the kids favourite show is on so that they dont slide off the treadmill behind you. (OK - I dont know if I'm ready to give it ALL up now)

It doesnt give you the freedom to just be sometimes. Your mind is constantly thinking of what next to tick off your list and how best to combine chores. I'm going to opt instead to just do what I think needs to be done right then and there instead of wondering what else can I put in motion when I go downstairs so as to minimise trips. Now I'll increase the trips and chill a bit mentally. I think I'm going to give it a shot. I dont know how successful I'll be being that I live in place like I do. Old habits being hard to break and all that. I definitely am going to try though.

R is the sort of person who focuses on one thing at a time and for someone like who runs a business and basically has his hand on the pulse of everyone in his family, I sometimes wonder how he does it. He does one thing at a time. He wont entertain silly phonecalls from home when he's at work bcos - he's at work! He wont work from home bcos - he's home!
Things like that. I ask him whether he's stressed, he says no. I know its natural for him to be in a on-your-toes position for most of the time and I used to think he's become so used to the stress that maybe he doesnt know another way. But (there's the but again) I know better now - he's got the clarity I search for sometimes and I think it's due to his focus on one thing at a time thinking. So I'm going to give it a shot.
Do the wednesdays for laundry, thursdays for grocery shopping kind of thing. I'm pretty sure it's going to be a tough one.