I remember hearing the term “multi-tasking” as a senior in high school as it pertained to a woman who “did it all.” I was in my econ class learning about some of the changes in the roles of women from 1940 to 1994. We talked about women staying home with children, women working during wars, women deciding to keep working, and women never missing a beat while doing any of it. I thought they were amazing.

1994 is the year I graduated high school and I had some pretty incredible role models in my life. Many of the women in my family worked full-time, raised kids, kept a home in order, and still had time to bake for bake sales (which is not ok by today’s standards) and drive on school field trips. Even as a little girl, I wondered how those women did it all. I watched them cook dinner, prep lunches, quiz me on my weekly spelling lists, and fold laundry all while answering the phone and watching the most recent episode of “Jeopardy!” I didn’t know they were multi-tasking then. I just thought they were Wonder Women.

I kept that view until I was 44. That’s right…until just a couple years ago. Some people made millions and millions of dollars by not only calling multi-tasking a fancy new term like “the hustle,” but by selling us a lot of books, conference tickets, and an entire line of crap that if we did more, we not only could be more, but we were worth more to the world. And I’m here to tell you I bought into it, even though I knew I have never been wired to do so many things at once and when I attempted to, I felt horrible about myself because I failed. I’ve always compared myself to the ancient VCR/DVD player combo. I know, I know–it’s an oldie, but the comparison is worth making.

When you have a VCR, it does one thing: it plays VHS tapes and it does it well. When you have a DVD player, it also does one thing: it plays DVDs and it also does that well. But when you decide to be fancy and buy a VHS/DVD player combo, it does two things and it cannot do each of them to 100% capacity. It does each thing at about 50%, so the quality is never really the same as if you played the tape or the DVD on a player intended only for that media. Make sense? Stay with me.

So what happens to me when I attempt to do more than one important thing at a time? It makes that VCR/DVD thing look like a freaking IMAX experience, that’s one thing. Another thing is that everything in my mind gets hazy, foggy even. It took me a really long time to figure out that some of us just aren’t made to multi-task and that seemed really unfair because I wanted to be Wonder Woman!

To take that thought even further, about three weeks ago, I was driving home from work, listening to a podcast (true crime, I imagine), and I was trying to figure out how and why my brain fog had been getting worse and worse over the past few months (I had previously just counted it as a byproduct of the pandemic), which also coincidentally have been a little more stressful than average. And, oddly, everything got very quiet–the traffic, the podcast, the wind–and I thought a very, very clear thought: Nobody is created to play the tapes and the DVDs. Some of us may do it better than others and some can do it for a really long time, but nobody was created to do all the things…including me. And you know what? That’s ok.

If I want to clear the fog, I have to clear my mind and my plate. I cannot heap everything that’s in the buffet onto my plate and expect to enjoy it all, finish it all, or for it even all to stay hot. I have to be choosy about what goes on that plate. I am constantly figuring out how to guard and pad my time, not scheduling things back to back to back and building in time to not have a plan. This is something I’m working on right now professionally in particular and it involves a serious look at how I actually spend my time, which sometimes is a little overwhelming!

But right now, I’m pushing through the fog, clearing the mechanism (5 points if you name the movie reference), and making space for my heart to beat, my soul to soar, and my mind to figure this stuff out. The fog hasn’t lifted yet because there’s more to it than just this multi-tasking thing, but we’ll get there.