Doing many things at once

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Are you multitaskers, and do many things at the same time?

I generally see people do their homeworks, at the same time talking on the phone with their friends, eat things, maybe chat with someone from their computers, listem to music.

It's amazing they can do many things at once.

When I am doing something, I can't even remember to drink the tea in front of me.

And we have a local saying for clumsy people "You can't even chew a gum when you're walking."

So am I clumsy, is multistasking problem common for aspergers, and does it causes serious problems in life

I can't do multitasking. I can't think of many examples now but the not drinking tea in front of me resonates well. I also can't respond to more than one verbal instruction in a sequence, which is fun!

Apparently it's common for Aspies to be poor motor coordination, and it can be problematic. I usually have cuts and bruises from walking into things and so on.

Off topic a little:

I have figured out that muscle memory is a good way to do more than one thing at a time, but it does take some training. For example, if I change my computer password, I train my hands to type it about twenty or thirty times and then I don't have to consciously think about it anymore.

The same with driving (which tires me out a lot). If I don't think about driving, and let my body just do it, then I can think about other things, or talk to myself.

I watch A League of Their Own and do this at the same time. I also chat and do forums at the same time but it's harder to talk on the phone and do anything else. I tend to zone the person out. That's why I hate phones. Yes it has shocked me that people can talk on the phone and listen to the TV at the same time or listen to the radio or to the other person in the room.
With me, when someone starts talking to me when I am on the phone, I tell them to shut up and need the person on the other end to repeat themselves. My mom is the same way. So is my dad. He needs to turn down the radio when he gets a call.
I talk to my husband as I do this but I go back to doing this after I am done. Then I go back to him and back to this. I cannot listen to him and do this at the same time.

When I was 17, I found how hard it is to pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time. It took lot of concentration. I also had difficulty in warm ups with running and waving my arms in the air at the same time. Also took lot of concentration. So I sucked in warm ups but I did my best.

My mom claims lot of people have difficulty with multitasking and even it gets hard for her at work so she makes all these notes, and tells her patients to call if she isn't back in ten minutes.

My husband has difficulty doing things at once, if he gets lot of it, he freezes up.

Mentally, I am very cluttered. I am definitely wired to want to multi-task...Even though I know I can only conceivably complete one task at a time, I am very mentally distracted by my thinking of other tasks that I also need to be doing, and I have very poor impulse control, so I will often do part of one task and then switch to another and then to another..leaving all tasks incomplete...It is my very very bad...ADD mind. I have a very cluttered and complicated life. I live in a big cluttered complicated warehouse...I have an internet business and help run a venue..there are all kinds of little details that need constant tending to...and a lot of these details can be mundane and difficult to focus on, and i am often left with the urge to do several things at once....
My mind goes on multi-track regarding creative stuff. Just as I can have more than one song stuck in my head at the same time, I mentally stack ideas for songs or creative projects....
But I can only really functionally do one thing at a time...and I am very bad with being given multiple instructions at once....

I usually suck at multitasking. There are certain things i can multitask with, though.. Usually if one of the tasks is repetitive, then i can. Often stimming helps me to concentrate on a task, so i guess it makes sense that if one task is repetitive enough that i can still concentrate on another. An example would be playing a not-very-complicated handheld video game while i listen to the tv. I can't do the sort of multitasking that other people seem to be able to do, though. Like at work.. If i'm doing one thing, and someone comes up and wants me to do something else.... I can only think about one of them at a time, and it seems like everyone else who works there can get both things done in a smoother way. I've gotten to where i can sometimes answer the phone in the middle of ringing someone up, but i usually have to just answer and then put the person on hold until i finish. Some people have said that i work slow or have "one speed" before. But, that's just how it is.

I'm crap at multitasking. The best I can do is go on the internet and listen to music at the same time.

I voted no, but the truth is more complicated. I can multi-task to some extent, particularly if I have the freedom to decide what to multi-task and when to. If the whole show is being governed by other people, I just can't, so workplace situations can be very scary and fraught with failure unless I'm given a lot of autonomy over how I work.

Before I was diagnosed, I used to come under pressure to multi-task, and the best coping strategy I had was to pick one unfamiliar task and one familiar one - familiar tasks don't seem to take much careful thought so I can almost do them with my eyes shut. I also had to tell myself not to be too rigid about sticking to the agenda - so that if there were any unexpected complications, I was ready to abandon one task so I could focus 100% on the remaining one. I used to worry that somebody would notice and tell me I shouldn't do that, but it never happened.

I guess the reason for the difficulty is that like many Aspies I can't cope well with interruption - multi-tasking is full of interruptions and it takes so long to get back into the right "head space" that it wastes more time than it saves, or if the deadlines are tight then the tasks just get messed up.

But as long as I'm calling my own shots, it's surprising what I can achieve. I have a sense of when I'm ready to do the attention leap, when I'm at what seems like a natural break with a job, and if I keep calm then I can put a bit of thought into making the re-entry a little easier, with a few "mental bookmarks" if you know what I mean. I kind of picture myself returning to the task, and just run through the key concepts that I think I'll be needing. And I can always remember my own work and ideas much better than I can remember those of other people, because my own ideas make immediate sense to me, whereas I find other people's ideas take me much longer to fathom clearly.

If the tasks are similar, I'm OK. Otherwise, I suck at it. I get overwhelmed very easily.

I cannot multitask. One example was yesterday I was talking to my little brother on the phone and looking for something on the computer for him. I realized that while I was focused on the computer, he was saying my name over and over because I was not listening to him....I was only saying "uh huh...yeah" and he could tell."

I do the same with the television. You can't talk with me if I'm watching the television. I can't block the offending talker out and I'll get pretty irritated.

I don't and I question how well anyone does anything while "multitasking."

It's just like a CPU. To do more than one thing is a division of processing power. If I'm doing something pretty mindless, I can do something else at the same time, but if I'm not focused on what I'm doing, I won't do it well, if at all.

I listen to YouTube, eat and post on WP at the same time.

i once got asked how I could eat and walk in circles at the same time. I told them it was because I wasn't aware I was walking in circles. I'm okay with it on the computer, but that's about all.

I'm like you. All those things you listed are the kinds of challenges I experience.

Multi-tasking wasn't even a word when I was a young adult, starting out in the work force (Air Force desk job and fast food/retail). I was constantly, constantly being lectured about how I need to get with it, and be quicker. Especially in the fast food and retail jobs. It was like, somehow all the other workers (all younger than me) were able to wait on customers, wipe tables, and restock the ice cream all at the same time.

I never thought, "Gee, I clearly have a challenge with multi-tasking" because that wasn't a concept that had occurred to anyone, at least not that I knew of. So, mostly I just thought everyone around me was unfairly intolerant and had some kind of mysterious ability to do stuff, and that I had some kind of defect.

And then people would come up to me and say, "You know what your problem is? You have no self confidence. You need to get some self confidence!" Right. Believe in yourself, and then you, too, will be able to make three banana splits, one without nuts, and a strawberry milkshake, restocking the vanilla ice-cream in the process, in two minutes. Everyone else can.