Autism and Multi-Tasking

Multi-tasking-autism
This is my brain on multi-tasking.

Multi-tasking is not my forté.  I get aggravated, confused, and frozen, then my stress level climbs.

In my mind is think, “What do I do first?  There are so many things!  What is a priority?”  My mind runs around with everything roiling in it.  At work, I write endless task lists, until I panic.

I freeze and get almost none of them done.  I have solved a part of the problem by hiring Julie, who has no trouble with multi-tasking.

Having a TODO list of house items is easier, but still problematic because I try to order tasks in a system that baffles others, but makes sense to me.  Here is my current list:

  • Throw out old stuff from when I was a kid.  Daunting, because I have to figure out where to start and make multiple decisions on what to discard.
  • Water the palms out back.  Hm, it started raining, so that disrupts the order of things.
  • Weed the front garden. Ditto.
  • Make strawberry-rhubarb pie before the rhubarb gets woody.  I had better put off throwing out kid stuff because it’s supposed to get hot after the storm passes, since I don’t want the oven heating the house.  I’ll check NOAA to see when the heat starts.  Then, once the heat starts, I can go downstairs and throw out kid stuff.
  • Send memory stick to Granny for her photo viewer and other items.  Did I get everything in the package?  That’s more important, so I should go to the post office.  Pie first.
  • I should really clean up my volumes of paper on the kitchen island counter.

The list grows.  I think too much.  I get discombobulated about the order of things changing, which makes my stress level rise.

But I like thinking!

I am at peace when I can focus on on project at a time.

About Eileen Parker 100 Articles
Support a starving writer, by buying my current book, The Weighted Blanket Guide, on Amazon. I'm a writer working on my fourth book. I live in the Twin Cities with my husband. Between us, we have four children.