This morning I tried a rather unconventional experiment in an effort to combine activities and free up another scrap of time in my usually busy day: I set up my mini stairmaster next to the sideboard in my dining room (tallest piece of furniture in my house with a flat surface) and exercised for 20 minutes while reading all my industry and friends’ blogs. The latter is something I do on a daily (or mostly daily) basis and usually takes a while. Normally I would forgo the workout because, really, my friends and the world of writing are far more interesting to me than sweating. The experiment was a success, and I shall be adding this to my routine, as I desperately need to get back into taking care of my body. I’m telling myself that it will help my mind. Now this is not intended as a post about my workout, per sea, but rather a question about multitasking. For those of us pursuing the writer’s life who have not yet been so fortunate as to be able to make an actual living doing the thing we love, we all work day jobs (sometimes more than one), have families, maybe go to school…the list of demands upon our time is often ponderous. But we make the time (Protect the writing, as a recent post on RtB suggests) because we love it. We are often driven by the need to write. In my case, it’s an issue of sanity. My husband has documented that I am much much nicer to live with if I’m writing, no matter how much is going on in my life. Women, in particular, are often the ultimate multi-taskers because we are the ones who frequently become Supermom, able to juggle career, family, marriage, housework, and hobbies faster than a speeding bullet. God forbid we drop something. I’m presently scarfing lunch as I write this post as another stab at multitasking. I’ve already moved my laptop 3 times this morning to work between other demands, and I’m about to do it a 4th while I get started on the next thing on my list. So what about y’all? What methods of multitasking do you employ to get the writing in? I’m always looking for new ones!
