Apparently, I've been doing it wrong

I've always prided myself on being a multi-tasker. I can nurse a baby, oversee a math lesson, take a helping call and keep my eye on dinner and never break a sweat. Going online is like multi-tasking heaven. I'm usually modding on MDC, checking my gmail for any reports or other messages, reading on some private boards I belong to, and working on the blog. I also keep my email program running. Sometimes I throw in ebay searches or general websurfing, just to really mix things up. Sometimes it will take me hours to get any one thing done, and if I get interupted by a fussy baby or hurt child, I can end up losing my work altogether.

My computer doesn't seem to like multi-tasking either. I often end up restarting it because it just gets overwhelmed and gives up when I ask it to many tasks at the same time.

In a way, the internet sets things up for multi-tasking. You're reading one site, it links you to three others, which in turn link you to more sites. The next thing you know you have twelve tabs open, an email in the works, and several bookmarks to add even though you'll never come back to them. Thank goodness I don't like to instant message!

Lately, however, I've been reading a lot about single-tasking. Zen Habits has some a great post on not multi-tasking, including three reasons why NOT to multi-task:

1. Multi-tasking is less efficient, due to the need to switch gears for each new task, and the switch back again.
2. Multi-tasking is more complicated, and thus more prone to stress and errors.
3. Multi-tasking can be crazy, and in this already chaotic world, we need to reign in the terror and find a little oasis of sanity and calm.

Autumn of the Multi-Taskers is humorous, but also a little unsettling in its assessment of how multi-tasking is "dumbing us down".

In some areas of my life, multi-tasking is inevitable. I'm homeschooling two-and-a-half children (Nick's doing some nursery stuff, but it's not a full-time gig), nursing a toddlerbaby, running a household. I've just taken on the job as children's choir director at church, and I have several volunteer gigs going as well.

However, there are spaces where multi-tasking is no longer serving me well. I should be able to log onto MDC, look over the forums, participate in the threads I want to, and then click out. I have a nagging suspicion it's not good for me to be logged on there 12 hours a day. I'd love to do some more writing, but I can't do it when I'm constantly running off to check messages or answer emails.

I've decided I'm going to challenge myself. This week, I'll log into my boards, do my work, do my play, and then leave. I'll check my emails when I first log in, and then click out. We'll see what happens without the artificial constraints of a mental checklist that says I have to first check here, and then there, and the here again. After all, there are more important things to life than getting to the bottom of a to-do list.