Monday, April 23, 2012

MULTITASKING MANIA



Greetings Fabulous Mothers,

A comedy of multitasking events led me to writing this blog and made me research a little about this topic and as usual share the story and the research, with you.

It was a typical Saturday around lunch time. I was making some  noodle soup for my daughter. I made the broth with some celery, tomatoes, onions, garlic powder and organic chicken legs. The broth was boiling and the delicious aroma filled the air.  

I have an open kitchen, and my laptop is always running on my desk which is adjacent to my kitchen counter top. While the broth was boiling, I decided to pull out the leadership course that I was taking. I opened the PDF to page 19 and started reading. Face book was on,  gmail instant message was on as well.

I got a phone call, I glanced at my caller ID it was from my cousin in Pennsylvania. I could not miss that, so I put on my headphones connected to my land line and we embarked on our normal bonding conversations.

 While we were on the phone, I was also reading this course which was open.  I then got a text from an excited weight release client,    “Yippee I lost 5 pounds this week!”  to which I replied  “ ek chin hai” which means wait a minute in my language and I replied to my cousin on the phone  “ Yipeeee..I am so excited for you and remember it takes four weeks for you to notice your body changing…..”     I heard a perplexed silence on the phone, the text reply   “????”, obviously she is American.

I quickly rectified the situation without even thinking that I might be doing too much, because somewhere I remembered an exercise blog, or Youtube video  saying  “do not just talk on the phone, you are wasting your time. Do some leg lifts or squats.”  So yes, guess what I was doing now while I was texting, reading, cooking, talking on the phone -  I was also doing some leg lifts!

I then had the audacity to remember that I had to get my notepad from my office ( in case I got bombarded by ideas!).  The moment of truth struck me like a lightening-I saw myself in the office mirror! Notepad in one hand, cell phone in the other, head phones on and doing leg lifts!!!  

The delicious aroma of the broth quickly deteriorated into a burnt smell wafting in the house. My daughter ran into the house from the backdoor after playing with her dog, a pug named Momo, “ I am hungry and my lunch smells burnt, what are you doing mamma?”

I took some deep breaths. I told my cousin I will have to catch up later when I make time to nourish our bond further. I turned off the stove and made my daughter some peanut butter and jelly sandwichs. I went to turn off the computer and I noticed that I was in page 26. How was that even possible? I cannot remember reading those five pages, leave alone consuming any information.

A satori moment , this was! There was so much “doing” going on, I had to check where my “being” was.

Mothers, we are not jugglers! This type of juggling act is really giving the whole world a very stressful energy. We are doing too much, trying to succeed, trying to achieve so many things in the world that we forget to connect with the source, we forget to be ourselves, we forget to be in touch with the wisdom within and most importantly we forget who we are.

"People can't multitask very well, and when people say they can, they're deluding themselves," said neuroscientist Earl Miller. And, he said, "The brain is very good at deluding itself." From this article:

When we multitask, I believe that all the tasks do not get the attention it deserves and each one gets diluted results.

So today, forget about being superwoman….I invite you to do one thing at a time if possible and do it 100%. This will help you become present and fully aware of the moment. You can live each moment with concentrated awareness bound to bring meditation in each moment, enjoying the beauty of each occasion, each task at hand, making each moment as joyful as you can.


Until tomorrow beautiful Mothers, Enjoy your day!
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As usual if you have any questions or comments I am here to help you! I also help moms via Skype sessions release limiting beliefs of themselves so they can really find profound success , fulfillment and peace.
©alivewithadwiti LLC

1 comment:

  1. Oh I agree with you on Multi-tasking. I have never been good at it - and it is assumed that it is a "woman's" virtue...I always thought well, in that sense, I am not much of a "woman". When I am doing something, I always feel the need to fully engage with whatever I am doing, otherwise I know I just cannot do that task...atleast the way I would like it done. Having said that - I think I do do "unconscious" multi-tasking - which is even worse I guess. Like I'd be playing or doing something with my daughter but my mind will be totally occupied with a work related issue. In a way, I guess I am allowing myself to be "not so good" at doing whatever I am doing with my daughter by allowing my mind to be engaged in some other task. Having said that, I think multitasking is a useful skill to develop, but we need to know when to multitask and which tasks we can lump together. Leg lifting while talking on the phone - sounds good to me. Thanks Ads for this..

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