The Evils of Multi-Slacking
Home entrepreneurs are highly efficient people. They have to be; if they miss that mortgage payment, they lose the “home” part of that title.
We’re expected to write, edit, post, design, build, market, sell, and 2.3 gazillion other duties to get our business off the ground, or at least out of the guest bedroom. Oh, yeah, and while we’re doing this, it might be nice to raise children and keep a household.
It’s called multi-tasking.
One thing I noticed is that as my powers of multi-tasking have grown, when faced with some routine task that I detest like, let’s say, write an eBay post, I take on new powers of procrastination.
For instance, this morning I watched television, talked to my friend, Marcy, on my cell phone, shopped for shoes online, doodled a really funny caricature of my husband, and attempted to figure out how to operate my kid’s Wii. All at the same time!
I know. I know. I’m pretty incredible.
Of course, none of this helped my quest to write a great search-term rich auction post.
I call it multi-slacking, or procrasti-startup-nation.
Anyone else stricken with this condition, on occasion? Because I’d love to hear some hints on how to avoid it.
But, I gotta go. I’m going to watch a DVD on how to do the Tango while I flip through some fashion magazines and make an espresso before I have to make some sales calls.
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October 23rd, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I to have great powers of procrastination. When I find myself unable to cross anything off the to-do list I start to focus away from what keeps me from doing my work. During times of high lollygaggin’ I view each chore done as a great accomplishment. I procrastinate when I’m under pressure or up against a lot of deadlines. I try to take it easy and slow and make a big effort to stay positive.
October 28th, 2008 at 7:03 am
Multi-slacking … what a brilliant term! Perfectionism is often at the root of my procrastination. I resist doing a task when I think I’ll never be able to do it well enough (that is, PERFECTLY!). The solution sometimes is to do it badly, perversely relishing the awfulness of it. It’s so much easier to improve something horrible than to create something marvelous out of thin air.