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Are you an annoying multitasker?  This question was posed on a segment on ABC-TV’s 20/20.  The woman who was interviewed for the segment was an independent business woman who owned her own gift-basket business. 

The 20/20 crew filmed this business woman getting ready for her day by hitching a Blackberry onto her belt and clipping on a cell-phone as she went out to have a social lunch with her friends.  What made this woman an annoying multitasker was that nothing would deter this woman from losing a sale, even if it meant attending to her constantly ringing cell phone while she lunched with friends.

First, it was patently rude and unsocial to ignore her lunch companions. How successful is this entrepreneur that she cannot hire or train someone to handle her business in her absence.  She will be unable to effecitively expand her business if her client’s require so much hand-holding— delegation and duplication are the keys to good management.  If she cannot manage her time–or her life– how can she manage her business? The 20/20 segment proceeded to show aspects of this woman’s multi-tasking lifestyle that makes you want cringe such as sleeping with a phone at her fingertips at night so as not to miss a call and admitting that her marital life is second to her attention to her business. Nice.

This woman’s service came at a price of being insensitive to those who are closest to her.  Are you being insensitive to those around you just so that you can get your busy tasks at hand accomplished? It is understood that success requires a great measure of dedication and attention. Multi-taskers many times believe that they demonstrate mastery over their business by working on several things simultaneously. But to others it may demonstrate just the opposite. Others may perceive it as an inability to focus on each task at hand.

We can use our businesses as a vehicle to drive us to freedom with our family and friends. But there comes a point when you can lose control of that vehicle and run over your family and friends.