Many moms and pops want to know how do I manage so many things and so efficiently.

I used to think I am a great multi tasking person.

But honestly that’s not true. I’ll tell you why.

Our human brain is made of trillions of cells and nerves and capable of doing innumerable stuff in the background. But, only one primary thing at one time. So the reality is that, our brain has the quickest ability to switch over from one task to another and come back to the previous one in a fraction of a time. This fraction of a time leads us to believe that we are multitasking. Yet, the brain is not doing anything parallely actively, it is only sequencing in the best possible way so that the time is not wasted.

How is time not wasted ?

Let me give you a few very easy examples that I think helps me save time.

There are a few important points to begin with if you want to save time.

1. You must know exactly what you want to do.

2. You must know the complete and exact sequence of all the activities you want to do.

3. Or you must have been doing these activities habitually every day or frequently.

So let me take the example of me waking up and making my tea, doing 30 minutes of yoga, warming milk, making coffee for my hubby and milk for my kids. Along with that planning what will my cook needs to prepare all the meals.
Continue reading “%post-title%” »
 

Lets say how a person would do these tasks.

1. Wake up
2. Go to the bathroom and freshen up.
3. Get the milk and newspaper from the doorsteps.
4. Boil milk in a big pot.
5. Boil water for tea and add tea leaves, milk, sugar in a teapot.
6. Stand and watch the tea getting boiled.
7. Pour the tea into a cup when done.
8. Now stand and watch the milk to boil and drink tea along side.
9. Once the milk is boiled, take the newspaper and tea in the hall to read the paper and drink tea.
10. Pour milk in a cup to make coffee.
11. Add coffee and sugar in the cup and stir.
12. Take out the tea cups and pour milk for kids.
13. Add complan in the cups.
14. Add sugar in the cups.
15. Wake the hubby and kids.
16. Wait for everyone to finish their bathroom jobs.
17. Serve everyone their drinks.
18. Drink tea and read newspaper.
19. Do the yoga for 20 minutes.
20. Ask everyone for the breakfast menu.
21. Go to the kitchen and pull out ingredients for breakfast.
22. Chop onions and tomatoes.
23. Break one egg  and mix chopped onions and tomatoes with salt in a bowl.
24. Take a pan out and place in on fire.
25. When hot, put a little oil in the pan.
26. Pour the mix and make one omelette.
27. Take out a plate and serve the omelette on it.
28. Break second egg  and mix chopped onions and tomatoes with salt in a bowl.
29. Put a little oil in the pan.
30. Pour the mix and make one omelette.
31. Take out a second plate and serve the omelette on it.
32. Now make the third omelette.
33. Break one more egg  and mix chopped onions and tomatoes with salt in a bowl.
34. Put a little oil in the pan.
35. Pour the mix and make one omelette.
36. Take out a plate and serve the omelette on it.
37. Break the fourth egg  and mix chopped onions and tomatoes with salt in a bowl.
38. Put a little oil in the pan.
39. Pour the mix and make one omelette.
40. Take out the fourth plate and serve the omelette on it.
41. Serve the plates to the family at the dining table.
42. Now ask them after the breakfast about the lunch preferences.
43. Goto the kitchen and take out the vegetables to be washed, chopped and cooked.
44. Wait in the kitchen while the maid chops them.

My sequence is like this:

1. Wake up
2. Collect newspaper and milk from the doorstep.
3. Place water and tea leaves in a teapot.
4. Pour milk in another boiler and a little into the  teapot.
5. While the milk and tea are warming up to boil I finish my morning routine in the bathroom.
6. Out into the kitchen and tea is ready.
7. Pour tea into a cup, pull 3 more cups out.
8. Add sugar in cups.
9. Add coffee and Complan in cups.
10. Wake up my hubby and kids while milk is reaching boiling temperature.
11. I finish my 20-30 minutes yoga if I want to.
12. Pour milk in a coffee cup and complan cups while they finish their morning bathroom routines.
13. Serve the coffee and complans and pick up the newspaper to read.
14. While everyone is drinking their beverages, my newspaper is done. We chat and talk what they would like to eat in the breakfast.
15. After they are done with our drinks, my kids move off their kids room to finish either a tables revision for a quick 5-10 minutes or writing Hindi or English numbers or words etc. Mind you it’s only for a 5 minutes.
16. Meanwhile I am back in the kitchen to pull out the veggies that needs to be washed and chopped by the maid.
17. While I am pulling out stuff from the fridge, I am planning what to cook if no wish dish from the family.
18. So lets say I need to make bread and omelettes.  So I place a pan on fire with a little oil to heat and bread slices in a toaster.
19. Then I take the previous day’s chopped onions and tomatoes from the fridge and the eggs out.
20. While I have mixed these in a bowl, the pan is hot and ready. So pour the stuff and close the lid.
21. Bread meanwhile is done and pops out, mine does 4 slices at a time. If there was a larger family I would have bought an eight slice toaster.
22. So I take out 4 plates and spread the bread slices on each of them and serve the omelettes by cutting into 4 pieces. (So you see, I did not make four different omelets, I just make a single large one and divided it into four pieces.
23. So my breakfast is ready. While serving the plates to my family, I am asking them about the lunch and dinner.
24. While eating and talking with my family, I am done with the menu of the lunch and dinner and I am mentally planning my day as to who to meet or call, what is the most important task for the day that must be done by the end of the day.
25. If there are many tasks, I write them on my laptop notes or task bar of gmail.

So you see I am not multitasking, I am simply sequencing each step of an activity by intermingling with the steps from  another activity.

If you see, the total number of activities are half of what someone would do sequentially without intermingling the steps.

So the trick to seem like multitasking is not really doing everything like the Goddess Durga who definitely can with her 5 pair of hands, but to use the brain to do 5 tasks in a sequence that is a mix of various steps from various tasks.

Now this is not a rocket science.

It needs a few basic things.

Firstly be thorough about what all activities you want to do in the next half a day.

Secondly you must have done all of them earlier to be able to know what step needs how much time and when it needs your interference.

Thirdly, you must be sure that if an activity needs 100% brain and physical involvement as it is the first time for you or it’s something that has a high stake on its successful completion, you better not multitask.

So that is the success of my multitasking which actually is multi sequencing very successfully.

So now I want you to tell me what all activities you multi sequence easily. I will love to read your comments below and publish some of them as part of my next article on time management.