Multitasking - Learning To Balance

Time Management Guide Part 11

At home I want to iron my clothes and it takes a couple of minutes for my electric iron to heat up.

At the same time I want to make myself a cup of coffee so while the iron is heating up, I might as well put the coffee maker on.

I need to make some toast for my breakfast and after popping two slices of bread into the toaster; I can go back to the ironing.

After ironing one shirt perhaps, I can take the boiling coffee off the stove and remove the pieces of toast from the toaster.

And at the end of five minutes, I have my coffee, two slices of toast and a freshly ironed shirt.

But if I am not careful, I could end up with two pieces of burnt bread, coffee that has boiled over and spilled all over the stove and probably a singed shirt.

I would suggest that if you feel that you can do more than one thing at a time, go ahead but limit the number to two or else you might end up in trouble.

Let's us now check out a couple of things which can be done simultaneously at the office.

In today’s hectic world, where is so much fret and fury, most of us hardly get any exercise. And since we are so busted for time, the question of taking time off to get some exercise seems completely out of question.

I think it would be a good idea to try and get some exercise while you are in the office itself. When you are making a couple of telephone calls together, it would be a good idea to get up and walk up and down.

If you have to sit down, stretch out your feet and try to wiggle your toes. This exercise has been proved to be a great stress reliever.

If you have a cell phone, try and get one of those hand free sets which you can attach to your body so that your hands are free while you are talking. This gives you a chance to do something useful with your hands instead of just supporting a hand set.

Multitasking is a term from the computer world, and there is no better place to see it work than on a computer. Learn to do more things at once on the computer.

Don't spend time staring at the screen waiting for a download to come through - organize your folders in the mean time. Avoid idling away on pointless tasks.