Lori, I often eat and surf the web simultaneously, but it would be hard to eat and play a game.

Gene, you’re very good at managing multiple tasks, an important skill.

I often like to do a set of tasks during a certain time period, switching between them as necessary. It’s actually fun and good training for the brain’s organizing skills. For example, I may coordinate doing laundry, cooking, doing the dishes (I let them soak in hot soapy water first), and answering e-mails.

I pride myself in being a pretty good multi-tasker because I feel I have a good grasp of what kinds of tasks dove-tail nicely and which kinds do not. It’s not literally doing two or more things at once though…it’s more like recognizing the down times in a task process, being able to feel them coming, deciding which other task would be best to do during those down times, and then executing that plan. It’s more like managing task flows and being able to transition quickly between them. When I’m doing this, it can look from the outside like I’m doing two things at once, but I’m actually not.

(It does help to have tasks of varying lengths and difficulty around so the right one can fit in the right place. For instance, I might be making multiple copies of a CD which means that there will be short waiting periods of a minute or two punctuated by small bursts of activity: take out the copy, put it in a case, load up a blank, press “go”. So if I happen to have a task on my to-do list that is fairly simple that won’t suffer from me leaving it every two minutes for 30 seconds, I’ll get that going. Or I might have a whole bunch of short tasks and I’ll decide to do those. Or I’ll decide to do some short sets of some kind of physical exercise.)

This does take a certain amount of a certain kind of brain processing capacity and not everyone has it. A lot of people can’t pay attention to music and lyrics at the same time unless the lyrics are super easy to follow. In any case, I was born with plenty of this processing capacity and it helps me dove-tail tasks, much like a restaurant chef does. One thing’s simmering, another’s on the grill, something else is getting prepped…It’s reasonably easy for me to keep track of a few things at once while having a casual conversation.

I don’t always do this kind of multi-tasking by the way, only when it feels right, but my mind does have a sort of sub-program going that will call up options to “kill two birds” whenever it spots one.

I’ve also learned over time how much of my attention different types of activities need. Writing prose is one of the things that I can’t do while doing something else. I can work on song lyrics while I watch a movie but I can’t even compose a good sentence unless it has my full attention. For anything really important or serious, I know I have to pay full attention to what I’m doing and I don’t multi-task at those times.

I think it’s a good idea for people to test and know their capacity for doing this kind of multi-tasking. If it’s within a person’s capability to do, it can really be helpful in life. If not, it can mean disaster to try to force it.