Unitask

The ability to unitask | by Monica Trasandes

Recently I found myself walking toward the kitchen with a load of laundry in my arms, two empty coffee cups dangling from my fingers, and car keys tucked between my chin and the clothes.

Oh, and I stopped to clean up a spill, using a fallen sock, which I then kicked into the kitchen. Forty minutes later, as I pulled my fresh-smelling, shiny keys from the wash, I realized I had reached unhealthy levels of multitasking.

This problem has dogged me for years. For example, I never just make pasta for dinner: I put on the spaghetti sauce while cleaning the bathroom, opening and shredding mail and watering the plants. This means I end up with a very clean apartment that smells like scorched tomatoes. I never seem to just drive, either: I simultaneously peel and eat a banana and listen to the news while returning calls for my media-director job (on my hands-free phone, of course).

A man I admire has called multitasking "the enemy of intimacy"—and for me that's certainly true. Often I do dishes or clear my desk while chatting on the phone with friends. I can't seem to help myself.

The problem: I've always felt guilty about doing one thing at a time. On those occasions when I have, say, carried laundry and dirty dishes on separate trips, my evil inner critic has sneered at me: "Hmm, taking it slow today, aren't we, unitasker? I guess some of us don't want to succeed." To which I should reply: "I want to succeed, evil inner critic! I just don't want to have to achieve all my goals at the same time." But I rarely succeed. Usually I give in, reluctantly, to that bullying voice.

So, for Christmas this year, I want to make a change. At long last, I would like to embrace a slower way of life: I'll read and only read. Drive and only drive. I'll be fully present when talking to my friends. Because with all the multitasking, I know that I'm missing so much.

This hit me recently on a business trip to New York. Every morning, a little gray-and-white cat followed me, meowing, from the hotel all the way to the spot where my work event was held. I was vaguely aware of the cat, but it wasn't until my iPhone battery died on the third day of the trip that I realized with a shock that the cat had been plaintively crying for food.

I bought her a can of food and set it down, and I watched as she gobbled it up. I took a moment to be grateful that, at last, I had listened and been able to help. I petted her. And then I thought, Oh, if only my iPhone were charged, so I could text a photo of the cat to my friends. Maybe I could even film her and turn it into a sweet little movie?

Once an addict, always an addict.

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I need to keep this in mind this holiday season!