An image that perfectly represents multitasking on a weekday morning. Courtesy of Flickr user avylxyz, cc license.
In two hours, my kids will be awake and then the fun will begin. Let me preface by saying that on a weekend it IS fun — I cook pancakes while the kids make gross soup with vinegar and dryer lint, we listen to NPR and stay in our pj’s ’till noon. Not so on a weekday when the morning’s tasks are compressed into a desperate 30 minutes.
This compression requires multitasking, my skills at which make my three year old’s soup look like Wolfgang Puck. In a weekday morning, I have to do three things at once to squeeze everything into the needed 30 minutes. Of course, some things don’t go together.
Read the list of tasks below and then the rules that follow. Triple-task to squish everything into 30 minutes in order to make the kindergarten drop-off car line and thus keep the Earth from spinning from its orbit into the sun.
Tasks & Times:
• Make kids’ breakfast, ensuring desired plate colors: 8 mins
• Make adult breakfast: 4 mins
• Feed kids: 9 mins
• Feed self: 3 mins
• Ensure kids clothed: 8 mins
• Imagine day in which kids can feed and clothe selves: 5 mins
• Clothe self: 3 mins
• Forget things and return to house: 2 mins
• Ensure all is right in the world with newly awakened child #1: 3 mins
• Ensure all is right in the world with newly awakened child #2: 3 mins
• Conversation of extreme importance with wife: 2 mins
• Assemble wife’s daily pharmacy of hippie vitamins: 2 mins
• Plan the day: 3 mins
• Cleanse self: 3 mins
• Pack lunches: 8 mins
• Feed dog: 2 mins
• All teeth brushed: 5 mins
• Check email: 3 mins
• Find preschool naptime pillow: 2 mins
• Find kindergarten homework folder: 3 mins
• Start car: 2 mins
• Pack car: 4 mins
• Pour and load 2nd cup of coffee for the road: 2 mins
• Fret about dirty house without actually doing anything about it: 3 mins
Rules:
• By packing lunches while making breakfasts, you can subtract 2 minutes from each
• Ensuring all is right in the world with newly awakened children may not be done simultaneously and disallows everything but cerebral concurrent tasks (because child is sitting bleary-eyed on lap)
• You may not begin wrangling kids to car until you’ve started car, and cannot forget things and return to the house until you’ve finished wrangling kids to car.
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