Multitasking

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I'm much more of a singletasker.

I suck at multitasking because I hyperfocus on a task (which is the symptom I focus on to clue people that I, nor my daughter, cannot possibly be ADHD because we hyperfocus rather than having a lack of focus). Either way, I've been getting better with it just because I have kids now and have no choice on the matter. It's funny, I do things most people wouldn't dare to try because I have 3 kids back to back (all still in diapers mind you), and it's funny because half of the things I do better than most now are the things I struggle with the most, like multitasking and time management and just regular management of daily activities in this house.

And now that I responded on this thread, I'll be able to find it again in the future when I have more time to really read through everyone's responses and look up some of the links. Like I said, I have no choice but to multitask, and I hate the struggle I deal so any advice is good advice at this point.

Thanks, auntblabby, I will definitely have to read it. I've heard about Terman's study before, but I didn't know he talked about this.

Eh, drums is using an aspect of the mental modeling I use for physics/math, typing is similar to drumming.

If you watch me type, I don't really home-row, if you had me type the word anomalous, and the word analagous, the different positions of the keys following the initial an- means I type the -ous from different uh... angles for each word.

Multi-threading is a perfect description.

To me, multitasking is being able to do that overlapping nursery rhyme thing (twinkle mary twinkle had little a little star lamb how... etc) by just singing both songs, rather than lining them up in your head and exerting processing power to run a (n1, m1, n2, m2, n3, m3, n4, m4) dual thread and match the words accordingly.

I could reverse alternate the even/odd numbers (2, 1, 4, 3, 6, 5, 8, 7, 10, 9, 12, 11, 14, 13, 16, 15) rapidly because it's just swapping threads.

speaking of mary twinkle, that is an old organist's multitasking exercise, to play the sailor's hornpipe on the solo manual, twinkle twinkle on the accompanyment [bottom] manual, and mary had a little lamb on the pedals. on my home organ i can barely do this, with much perspiration- iow, it almost exceeds my total brain capacity, as i have been practicing this for a few years and have not substantially improved but i keep at it because i am stubborn and a bit foolish, fighting against my limitations.

I can multi task but I find it harder to do and it can be counter productive to me. I remember when I was a child and doing homework that I could never be interrupted. I tend to get side tracked when I multi task.

I get far too involved with one thing to even consider doing another.

For example, when I'm packing my tools away I forget completely that the soldering iron is 400 degrees C! Result? Burns. While not multi-tasking it shows how bad at doing multiple things at the same time, I concentrate on one thing too much and the other is either wrong or just not done.