“Next time someone asks what you “do” just shrug, grin & say: “Multidimensional Multitasker”. They’ll either slink away all weirded out or you’ll have one of the best conversations of your life. Guaranteed.”~CAW

I love having quirkily creative friends with brilliant minds who aren’t afraid to use them. Courtney A. Walsh is one of them and I giggle and nod and smile and hear myself adding on her favorite reinforcing mono-syllabic word…”YUP!” whenever I read her facebook postings. The one above really jumped off the screen at me, since I see myself that way. I told her that it will now be part of my bio and maybe even my ever growing resume.

It amazes me how much I can accomplish in a day if I cast myself into it. It starts even before I open my eyes, although, like this morning, the sun was beckoning me to do so when the numbers on the clock had a 5 at the beginning. It isn’t a manic, racing thoughts kind of process, like being on a hamster wheel. Rather, it is a wish list of the things I want to do….this morning began with writing this entry,  then completing paperwork so I can marry a couple in New York City in September, then typing an interview for Wisdom Magazine, a phone conference with a friend with whom I am co-facilitating a workshop on Saturday,  putting my house back together after the two talented painters are finished their handiwork in my living room, dining room and hallway, then going to the gym for my playout and then seeing a counseling client tonight. In between, doing laundry, dishes, eating and showering and taking care of other bodily functions(:  Some of you may feel exhausted (as friends have told me) just reading the list and would want to head back to bed.  This is the pace at which I have run for years and although there are times when I need to be single focused and mindful of what I am doing, like when I am with a client or checking to make sure I have my keys, wallet, cell phone or when I am behind the wheel of the Jeep, I have gotten quite adept at accomplishing most of the things on my list each day. I learned from masters, since my parents modeled doing it all.

The dimensions in which I operate are many and varied as well, since I am a householder, parent, friend, sister, cousin, speaker, writer, minister, social worker, therapist, coach, promoter, volunteer….and the list is growing.  I shift gears readily, sometimes starting one task and then needing to put a bookmark in it, to take care of what presents itself in the moment. When I worked in a psychiatric hospital, I could be sitting with a patient and the phone would ring and I would need to answer it, since the caller ID indicated that it was someone I may have left a message for hours earlier and if I let it go, I may not have reached them again anytime soon. I may then have had to tell them I will call them back if the call requires more personal info about another patient than I would have been at liberty to share. I then returned my attention to the person before me and there could be a knock on my office door with a co-worker needing to tell me something…..and so it would go. Amazing that at the end of the day, I had any sanity left!

One of the experiences I have had as I am fully immersed in the fifth decade of my life, is what I have called “my middle aged moments” or more complimentarily “my wise woman moments”, since the older we get, the wiser we can become. There are studies that say that when we multi-task, we are less effective at any/all of those things we set out to do. I read about one that tested peoples’ abilities to forgo chocolate cake in favor of fruit salad if they had too many items to memorize. Silly me, even if I had fewer items to recall, I would still select my drug of choice.

At the risk of weirding people out, the next time someone asks what I do, I will proudly, gladly, delightedly, mischievously, mindfully, blissfully tell them “I am a multidimensional multitasker. How about you?”

http://youtu.be/Zhoos1oY404 For those of a certain age…you will remember this….Erich Breen spinning plates on the Ed Sullivan Show  This is how my life looks sometimes.