Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The 36-Hour Day: Multitasking

How do moms do it all? Multitasking, of course.

My pants were too long.

They got caught on the heel of my shoe at work, tripped me up on the stairs, and made me look like I was playing dress-up in some tall person's clothes. I needed to hem them, but couldn't find the time.

So I finally made the time. I hemmed them at work. At my desk. While I was wearing them.

Luckily, the pair I was wearing when inspiration/exasperation struck was pinstriped, and it's fairly easy to keep the hem level if you make sure the stripes line up. And, since I was wearing them while I worked on them, I didn't sew the cuffs together -- this time. (Yeah, I don't have so much of the mad sewing skilz.)

The results were fine. I was happy. So happy, in fact, that two days later I deliberately wore another pair of too-long pants and did it again.

All moms know the real secret to success is multitasking. Hard work and determination, too, of course, but multitasking -- that's the stuff, right there.

We all multitask, almost all the time, almost without thinking about it. Checking personal e-mail while at the office? Yup. Talking on the phone while cooking dinner? Uh-huh. It's not the smartest thing to do, but I'll admit that I schedule pediatrician appointments, return phone calls, and catch up with friends while I'm driving to and from work. If I'm watching TV -- I'm addicted to "The Office," "Dirty Sexy Money," and anything featuring Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, or Gordon Ramsay -- I'm probably folding clothes at the same time.

Of course, it's possible to take things too far. I'm marginally ambidextrous, and once I tried to write two different holiday cards at the same time, one with each hand. I've tried to cook several different dishes at once, only to forget about one (or more) until the smoke alarm went off. I've come to understand that trying to do anything else while inserting a contact lense is not a good idea. And I was thisclose to rigging up a floor-cleaning system with a few cloth diapers and my crawling baby when he up and started walking...

Kidding!

Kind of...

How do you multitask?

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