Done With The Multi-Task

George often makes bold claims. He often makes bold claims with confidence. Usually I confidently agree with his bold claims. But - I have been known to disagree on occasion. One such occasion was when he claimed that no one is ever GOOD at multi-tasking. I disagreed. I for one AM good at multi-tasking. I ventured to say that most moms are also good at multi-tasking. We debated. (I was probably doing dishes or some other task while debating.) His main point was that no one ever does any task well while multi-tasking; those who do succeed at multi-tasking are actually switch-tasking, switching from one task to the other while completely focused on the task at hand. Now that I think about it I'm sure I was doing some chore while having this debate because apparently I was not fully focused on the task of debating. I now take back any statements I made on this subject and fully agree with my husband at least on the point that I am not good at multi-tasking.

Here's what changed my mind.
We are going camping for a week, leaving tomorrow morning. My list of things to-do is two pages long. Cook, clean, pack, write thank you notes, make a teacher gift, letters to mail, books to return, meetings to attend, volunteers to coordinate .... With a list that long and only 24 hours in the day I required some serious multi-tasking. At 10am I pulled out the sewing machine to make a quick gift, assigned the kids simple jobs around the house, put chicken on the grill, got out the coolers to start packing. fiddle-faddle-liddle-this-liddla-athat-dum-dee-dum. Before I knew it it was 12:15pm, time to make lunch. Lunch - reminded me of dinner - which reminded me of chicken - which reminded me that at 10am I put chicken on the grill, on high! A little shriek. A little trepidation as I opened the patio door. A little relief as I saw the grill had not burned up. A sigh of disgust as I realized that $10 worth of chicken was burned to a crisp - briquettes to be exact. Not only that - when I opened the grill I was assulted with a huge waft of smoke. Stinky smoke. I stunk all day. Actually, I still stink. Can't get the smell out of my nose.

I STINK AT MULTI-TASKING. Humble pie for dessert. George was right. When I attempt to multi-task I don't do anything real well - sometimes it's worse than just ok, it's down right horrible.

So. I vow to stop attempting to multi-task. I'm taking this vow seriously. I'm quiting cold turkey. Tomorrow we go for a week of camping. My tasks will be few. Sleep. Swim. Read. Eat. Play. I think I can handle it.

I'm looking forward to a week of hanging with my friends Anita and Joyce - camping with the kids and having the dads join us for a couple of the nights. Good times. I'm sharing a few pictures of last year at Lakewood - poking through the old photos inspired me to get away from this computer and finish packing. We're leaving in 12 hours!!!