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Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Multitasking Doesn’t Work

Oh Yeah?



I have read that we are tricked into thinking we are multitasking when in fact our minds are are doing one thing at a time. 


I guess the girl at the McDonald’s window is doing that when she takes our money while talking on the headset to another customer. Take order. (Brain switches gears.) Punch order into the menu selection. (Stop—take attention away from the customer at the speaker, to a customer at the window--us). Take our money. (Stop) Give us change. (Stop) Speak into the headset, “Does that complete your order?” (Stop) Now you wonder if she is talking to them or you. She hands us our change. (Stop.)  She smiles, “Have a nice day,” She turns attention to the headset,“May I take your order?”

My God, that girl ought to be hired by a corporation.

Speaking of corporations, here is a message from a CEO:

 “We foster sustainability and social responsibility through our people, technologies and on-going commitment to our global and local communities.”

What the heck?! Did you get that?

Once I picked up a little lady at the dump. (Or to be politically correct a Transfer Station.)  

This story applies, give me a minute. 

I was unloading my pickup into the Transfer Station’s ginormous trash receptacle when she came to me and asked if she could help. She did, we began talking, and I ended up hiring her to mow my lawn. I didn’t realize that doing that was like taking home a puppy.


She was a sweet person, quite messed up emotionally; being raised by nuns and beaten by them can do that to a person. But then we must be careful believing the stories some people tell. I believed her, however, as something dreadful happened to her to put her on disability for mental problems.

The point I am about to make is that once in awhile this little lady would pop out with some pithy advice. For example, regarding multitasking, she said, “Pretend you are washing the baby Buddha.”  In other words, if you were washing the baby Buddha you would place all your attention on your task at hand.

Another time, when my first-born daughter was about to be married in May, in Oregon, outside, by the banks of the McKenzie River, I was concerned that it might rain. It had been off and on. My little friend said, “Ask the Grandmothers,” meaning ask my grandmothers on the other side for beautiful weather. I did and the weather was perfect—shirt-sleeve weather.

You never know who the master is…

Thought for the day: Haruki Murakami once said “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking” --Black Sun Reviews