Try To Do Just One Thing at a Time
BET YA CAN'T

May 3, 2009
By: O. J. Cunningham

Multi-tasking is defined as the ability of an individual to perform more than one task at the same time.

Before the INTERNET: An example of multi-tasking might have been -- (A) listening to the radio while reading the evening paper or (B) Talking on the phone while preparing a meal on the stove.

Since the inception of the INTERNET, many of us have become a "Multi-tasking Super-Heroes."

EXAMPLE 1: -- I was driving down Center Ave this week, eating a fast-food burger, with a coke cup between my legs, talking on my cell phone, programming the touch-screen of my Tom-Tom for directions to a client when I realized that my favorite radio talk show was just starting. So I turned on the radio and dialed it to WSGW.

EXAMPLE 2: I was home last night watching the latest segment of "Twenty-Four" when I realized that I was expecting an important e-mail from a client, so I cranked up my laptop to check e-mail just as my daughter text-messaged me from Florida and then my cell phone rang as I was texting her back as I remembered that there was an NBA playoff basketball game that I wanted to see on FX so I set up picture-in-a-picture. As I answered my phone, the pizza guy rang the front door buzzer . . . and then I got a "twitter" from one of my fishing buddies about Spring Steelhead fishing . . .

There might just be one too many things going on here . . .

For the past week, I have been trying to do just one thing at a time.

It's not going well.

I have become so accustomed to juggling so many different things at one time . . . I think I may have lost the ability to enjoy ANY of them.

In this hurry-up, multi-tasking world . . . Stop and smell the roses has become a thing of the past . . . More likely: Snap an i-Phone pic of those roses and send it via Facebook to all my "friends" and Twitter them to let them know that I really don't have the time to stop for a whiff of floral bouquet.