As I write this blog, I am eating a cherry turnover, watching an episode of "Life" and petting my cat.  How much enjoyment am I truly getting out of any of these thing?  I'm not savoring all 280 tasty calories in the turnover.  I'm not fully following the plot on Life.  I'm not hearing the purr or feeling the softness of Evan as I scratch his head.  Multitasking has its price.

How many items do you find yourself juggling throughout the day? At home? At work?  If your day is anything like mine, being faced with downtime is like stilling the mind and finding enlightenment.  It's  something I never allow myself to see.  There is never just something, but multiple somethings that need to be done.

In America, our society crowns the ultimate multitaskers.  The more you can accomplish in a given timeframe, the more successful you are as a person.   The more you have to do, the more important you must be.  For most of us, if our tasks were never completed, the world would keep on spinning and it most certainly would not end.  Americans clutter their time like they clutter their houses, with stuff upon stuff, upon stuff.

There are some benefits of multitasking.  For one, you are able to get that nag out of your office by shuffling a few items around and getting him/her what s/he needs right away.  You get to feel self important. You get to look busy.  You never have to be bored, although I have managed to be very busy and bored out of my mind all at the same time.  You never have to feel unvaluable.  You never truly have to enjoy your life or the moments happening around you, after all, some people like to be miserable.

I've been observing my multitasking habits this past month.  I over think and plan ahead on many things to save what amounts to 5 seconds here and there.  Many times I retrace my path to figure out what the original task I set out to do was.  There are days I believe I am going senile, because I blank out and cannot remember what in hell's name I was doing.  I'll go up the stairs to get my cell phone, vacuum, come down the stairs with laundry, grab a snack, pay the bills and then go up the stairs to get my cell phone.

To save time going up and down the stairs with laundry, I attempted to carry three laundry baskets full of dirty clothes at one time.  Theoretically, this sounded like a great idea.   As it would turn out, a trip to the doctor for muscle relaxers, three trips to the chiropractor, a trip to the physical therapist and the inability to actually finish the laundry once my back was thrown out simply did not occur to me during the decision making process.

Taking three cats to the veterinarian for dental work at one time seemed like the ideal way to get everyone their medical care with less driving around and handling unhappy feral cats.  Again, I failed to account for a few items.  Bringing one cat home drunk with anesthesia and trying to keep it calm is no small task.  Three is a nightmare.  Amanda fell over on her side and rolled over every few steps she attempted to take.  I eventually had to lock her in her favorite hiding place, the bathroom closet, to prevent her from injuring herself.  Hearing her cries, our foster cat, Wallace, began caterwauling his concern.  By 12:30 AM, Wallace was locked in the kitchen, Amanda in the bathroom, and Chas had his squeeky toys taken away, because he thought all the noise meant it was doggie party time. That was not the worst of it.  I had to run around twice a day for ten days and pill several cats with antibiotics to prevent issues from their gingivitis. Thank goodness Cat-5 is stable and won't be somersaulting down the stairs again any time soon.

On Tuesday, I raised a concern about our messy, unorganized house.  My husband pointed out I have a habit of keeping various projects going on in every room of the house.  Of course I do, I'll get more done if I multitask, right?  No, I end up with piles of incomplete projects all over the place and a huge mess I need to figure out how to clean up.

I've decided I don't like to live this way.  It's my life and I get to make the rules.  The problem is, breaking old habits and patterns is not exactly easy.  I'm a far way's off from recovering from my multitasking lifestyle.  I am taking it slow and being being more conscious of my actions throughout the day.  If I am feeling overwhelmed, I probably am and it means I should not slow now necessarily, but do things differently, like one item at a time.

As I catch myself doing too many things, I correct myself and find I am enjoying the things I do more.  I'm just doing them in an order and dropping the chaotic/drama bullshit.

In Part II of this post, I will discuss methods to assist you with changing from a multitasking way of life to a singletasking way of life.  How do I know they will work? Because I plan to verify they work on myself, a queen in the multitasking world.