Fidgety

I am the queen of multitasking.

It is completely impossible for me to do only one thing at a time. Even during high school, I couldn’t do my homework unless the TV was on. I can do eleven things simultaneously and all of them successfully.

A few weeks ago, I bought a digital recorder that used IBM’s voice recognition software to take the audio file and create text from it. Since I can’t type as fast as I’d like to, I thought that would be an invaluable gadget for me.

Putting aside the severe issues the digital recorder had, I decided to just use the software with a microphone. Well the way this software works is that you have to turn off all the other noise at home. Even our birdie got in the way of the software doing its job.

To top it off, the output was only 85percent accurate. For the entire weekend, I battled with thoughts of whether I should keep the gadget or return it. I liked the concept so much that I didn’t want to return it. I wanted it to work.

After a few days, it hit me: I wasn’t going to keep it. The software completely rules out any possibilities of multitasking. I have to sit there and read out, including punctuation, every single word and speak slowly and distinctly. Not my forte. I speak too fast.

So the software went back and I had no regrets.

It seems the only time I am only doing a single task is when I read. Even then, I do a lot of thinking but I think the reading should count as a single task. For some reason, I never feel restless when I read.

There are many weekends when I sit in the same chair and read from 9am to 5pm, non-stop. So the good news is that I don’t have ADD.

Still, though, I wonder what it is about reading that doesn’t make me seek eleven other things to be going on simultaneously.

Previously? Work.