I don’t know about you, but I can’t multitask my way out of a wet paper bag.  Let me clarify.  I can walk and chew gum or check email while going to the bathroom, but working on five different yet closely related things is a bit too much for me.  Today at work I had four requests for quotes come in in a thirty minute time span.  This while I was taking care of walk-in customers at the counter.  I was simultaneously trying to work out a delivery issue for another customer and get some material picked up for a separate job from a factory near San Diego.  By the time the customer I had on the phone, with one line holding for me by the way, repeated himself for the third time I realized that I was deep in the pit of multitasking.  I placed the call on hold and said out loud to nobody “Jason, you know better than to try and do all this at once.”  I picked the phone back up and focused.  Done.  I started one of the “on deck” items and a customer walked in so I put the item back “on deck.”  I am coining the new term “multimistaking” so know you heard it here first.  I am a multimistaker and hey…knowing is half the battle I hear.  I’ve realized the more tasks I take on thinking I can handle them, the more mistakes I am actually making.  The more I am forgetting to do.  The more details that are falling away only to come up down the road by someone who is relying on me to make sure those details are included.  If you are a multimistaker as well, there is a cure.  Be realistic with yourself and your friends, family, customer, coach, whoever.  Second, take your time, one at a time.  Those depending on you will thank you for it.  Multitasking = Multimistaking.