How Can Multitasking Save Time?

About a year ago I was in a severe bike accident. I broke my hip on one leg and tore the knee up on the other. All of this required major surgeries to fix. Being a parent of a child with special needs, crises happen all the time, but this was different. This crisis was mine and it caused a very stressful domino effect, not just in my life, but everyone around me. The good thing about crises are they teach us things about ourselves. Below are three things I learned about time, scheduling, and multitasking that have helped me immensely.

Be Careful what you Multitask

I did not have time to do my rehab program at home so I came up with a great idea to multitask.  I decided to rehab while meditating and doing my daily “to do” list. It became very apparent that trying to do three things at once resulted in doing nothing well. Who can meditate quietly while trying to balance on a treadmill and write a “to do” list on a post-it note? It is not that multitasking doesn’t work, but you have to be careful what things you chose to multitask in order to “save” time! There had to be a better way.

 Don’t think in terms of all or nothing

I struggle with perfectionism. I had it in my brain that if I could not get 20 minutes of good mediation in, I would not do it at all. I needed help to get creative. I worked with my physical therapist to make some of the rehab exercises yoga and stretching. I now meditate 5 minutes sitting still and 15 minutes doing rehab quietly on my yoga mat along with the meditation. I actually liked this so much it has become my new routine. Letting go of perfectionism and  trying different things opened my mind to new ways to multitask more effectively. 

Using Multitasking to get Organized

Trying to keep organized and making my “to do” list also took some creativity. I noticed that during dinner time, my son’s conversation would get a little repetitive. I got an idea and bought some fifty cent notebooks at Walmart. 

Every day at dinner we now write down our “to do” lists for the next day in our notebooks. He loves routine and checking things off. It helps him become more independent using his own list instead of me telling him 50,000 times a day to do something. We also write three things we are grateful for every day. I am now getting time to organize, while improving dinner conversation, spending quality time with my son, and focusing more on gratitude.

Again, multitasking can be done beautifully if you become intentional and creative in the way you do it.  Share below how you have multitasked in creative ways that have helped you accomplish more things in the right way!