Friday, February 22, 2008

Multi-Asking

I'm trying to think if I know someone who isn't doing multiple tasks at the same time. Trying harder. Nope, can't think of anyone. Even babies are tasked to do a lot. Try giving a four month old his tummy time and urge him to scoot few more inches each time.

It's a serious hard work. Really, put yourselves in their shoes (or their socks I should say, they barely keep their crib shoes on) and imagine mountain climbing over and over again. That's how I think they must feel if you figure out the proportion of their growing body weight vis-a-vis their velocity goals. Pardon me but I'm an accountant, my reasoning most of the times revolve around numbers.

Multitasking. Writing it already makes me feel little pooped. Just a little. Whoever came up with the word must had a background in numbers too. Break down the word in two - multi plus tasking, equals multitasking. Then there's the root word - task plus suffix 'ing', equals tasking. See, what I mean. The word itself is multitasking, a singular verb representing more than one noun.

I believe the word was supposed to be Multi-Asking. Think about it, the extent of the things we have to do every single day depend on how much expectations we ask from ourselves. Or allow others to ask from us. And the new millennium is asking that we do most of it at the shortest possible time.

Multi-asking, that should have been the right word. But it would sound funny, it needs that consonant in between to make it sound right. It would have been nice to have the 'hyphen' (or dash) as a 'break' in between the two words. It sounds a little more playful.

Break and play. If you're going to add more from your 'to-do' lists, make sure you squeeze those in. Do yoga, make funny jokes or tickle someone. Find a breathing room, even if it means just closing your eyes for a minute or two. As simple as that.

Then, you'll be more than ready to tackle the 'multiples' in your lives.


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