The cure for multi-tasking: delegation

Back in the day, before women had equal rights to work ... well, before we got paid for work (ok, it's a work in progress) ... anyway, waaaay back in the (19)80's, multi-tasking was the buzzword. People were judged to be more productive if they could find a way to do more than one thing at a time. Someone "people" always seemed to equate to "women".

The boss had to focus on something, so the secretary a.k.a. "girl Friday" took up the slack: she (always 'she') was responsible for scheduling the boss's time, reacting to emergencies, taking care of mundane chores like picking up his drycleaning. All for the reward of a pat on the head.

The result: subordinate workers (i.e., women) being brainwashed into thinking that juggling multiple things was the way to Get Stuff Done. And failing - forgetting one thing while doing another, letting something drop to meet conflicting deadlines, begging forgiveness to find a way to recover. Research shows that multitasking lowers productivity.

The myth of the "superwoman" entered the lexicon: the woman who could juggle home life while working and maintaining high standards in both. At the same time, the ratio of women to men smoking, having heart attacks and ulcers started to close.

The cure: delegate. Traditionally, women didn't have as much opportunity to delegate: kids, if they cooperated; your partner, if he was enlightened; an inferior worker, if you were lucky. Now, we have the democratization of labour with the advent of A.I. Everyone (with a smartphone) has a personal assistant in her pocket. Everyone (with an up-to-date operating system) has another in her computer.

Have you tried delegating to your AI?

How to set up your phone to recognize your voice (Android 9)

1. Open the Google app (swipe up and tap "Google")
2. Open settings (More... > Settings > Voice
3. Turn on voice recognition: Voice Match > toggle "Access with Voice Match" on
4. You will be redirected to train google to recognize your voice.
5. Accept changes.

Now, when I think of something I want to do later, I just ask Google to set a reminder. When I hang the laundry on the line, Google will remind me to bring it in at sunset. When I put bread dough in to rise, Google prompts me when it's ready to go in the oven ... and when it's baked I don't miss the buzzer when I'm off reading.

While you're at it, set Wind Down in your Digital Wellbeing on Android. (Details to follow in a later post.)

Instead of attempting to multitask,