Multi-tasking rules!

The world’s greatest multi-tasker is called… Mum. If that had not been so, the Human Race would have faded out umpteen centuries back. And that means, dear reader, you wouldn’t have made it here either. So, since God approves, multi-tasking is popular, in the highest places.

I know; you’re a non-believer. So why bring God into this? The good news for you is that, multi-tasking is neither spiritual nor religious. There. Feel better? Now you can take part again. Take a few minutes, when you next visit a shopping mall, to see just how brilliant Mums are at multi-tasking.

Don’t get grumpy if you’re a boy person. Some of my mates are not only terrific multi-taskers at work, but also at home and at play. These are the three key zones of human activity; any questions? Here is one. Why do some folks think that ‘multi-tasking’ is all done at the same time? Duh!

Wouldn’t that be called ‘simultaneous-tasking’ or ‘multiple-tasking’? One psychiatrist got this wrong, suggesting that multi-tasking is… a ‘mythical activity in which people believe they can perform two or more tasks simultaneously.’ Get with the programme, Sir!

If we want to be pedantic here, we multi-task in this so-called ‘incorrect’ fashion all the time! As we drive, and talk on a hands-free phone, we also think, mentally plan that evening’s schedule, wave to a neighbour on arriving at our place and thankfully… breathe.

So, singular-tasking, means you have to give up some tasks. I suggest it shouldn’t be, breathing… Despite the rhetoric about jobs, in the recent General Election, rampant technology is the major contributor to fewer employment opportunities, smaller staff numbers and more multi-tasking.

Of course specialists will always be required. New enterprises need people; and technology needs practitioners. But, wise employers must ask somewhere in any interview… ‘What can you do?’ The case for multi-tasking comes in two categories… the physical and the cerebral (the brain bit).