Trouble multitasking?

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Have you ever had trouble multitasking and made a critical mistake? For example, you were talking to a passenger while driving and went through a red light. Post examples if you have any.

Talking to my pesky neighbor when I was 17 and stopped at a stop sign and kept on going and there was a pedestrian I didn't see so I went forward while they had the right a way. I got pulled over and it was my very first ticket.

I have no idea if this is a critical mistake but at Safeway my daughter wouldn't stop grabbing stuff so I kept trying to keep her away from it and there was a woman in front of me and I kept invading her personal space with my cart because I couldn't do two things at once. Doing the personal space rule and being a parent. Now if only my daughter would have kept her hands inside the cart.

Once I was talking to my mom, and I went to throw out a candy wrapper, but I accidentally threw my cellphone in the trash instead (I was holding it in the other hand)

I've done those sort of things. That happens when my mind is preoccupied. Like I once put the ice cream in the fridge instead of in the freezer.

I hope you got your cell phone out of the trash.

Once I learned how to make wine and forgot how to drive.

I mean like in a more serious sense. You tried doing two things at the same time and made a mistake that could have hurt someone (or did hurt someone). Ever happen to anyone here?

Yes i have. Exactly the example you posted. 2 times. Beeing in my car with my friend, talking, crossing red lights at late afternoon/early night. One time at an intersection going straight through (more like a 20° left turn). I blamed the orange street lights, but in reality i just failed multitasking at this moment, talking, shifting gears, orienting on unfamiliar road. The other time coming back from a convention, extremely echausted, at an intersection with a seperate redlight for left-turners and i just saw the green light for straight through and missed the red for turning left, obviously while turning left. The first one was unnoticed, the second one got me a ticket.

The third redlight got me losing my license. But like i posted in the other thread - This wasnt a multitasking error, rather a miscalculation of how long it would take to turn red...

Peace
TK

Nope. Thoughts run preemptively in my processor.

I'm not a good multi-tasker. I tend to hyper-focus on what I'm doing at the time and ignore everything else.

I recently poured lemonade into a cereal bowl because I was distracted talking to my mom and I also have been known to accidentally put hand soap on my toothbrush instead of toothpaste when I get distracted in the morning.

My hyper-focus is so evident that when I used to work in retail, a sort of New Age hippy boss I had, when complaining to me about not multi-tasking and spreading my attention in the store, put it nicely by starting with: "Your intense focus on only one thing at a time is very Zen.....but....."

What had happened was we were suppose to be responsible for not just serving customers, helping them find something, ringing up purchases at the register, but also for gift-wrapping -- at a station where your back is turned on the rest of the shop!! -- plus also taking stock, arranging displays, going getting new stock from the back. All this while ALSO keeping an eye on all customers.

This was before security cameras were universal. It was a small mom-and-pop store so old fashioned eyeballs were the order of the day.

Well, some kid who turned out to be a well known petty thief in that area, stole a watch from a display cabinet while I was the only clerk on duty in the store and was busy with a customer --- I probably was turned around standing there gift wrapping at the time.

I got blamed for not keeping an eye on things, and because my boss had already noticed that I tended to be able to pay attention to only one thing at a time, I got hauled over the coals. I've never been able to multi-task, and when I try it feels like a big fuzzy ball of stress is building and building until I can't take it anymore.