Men Can Multi-Task They Just Choose Not To !
I have been speaking to quite a few male acquaintances lately and discovered the age old saying “men can’t multi-task” is actually not true, it should be changed to ‘men choose not to multi-task’ it’s not because they don’t have the brain capacity, it’s actually because men are great at living in the now.
Some people would say this is rubbish, but just think about it, if a man is doing something and you ask him to do something else, 9 times out of 10, he will wait until he has finished what he is doing before going onto the next task. Ask a woman to do something while she is doing something else and you will either get the answer “can’t you see I’m busy” or you will see a woman doing an impression of a headless chicken running around doing 2,3 or 4 things at a time, because women perceive everything needs to be done now, get it out of the way because we have a hundred and one other things to do, even if most of the things we have to do don’t actually need doing until next week or next month.
One of the great teachings of self-help books is to ‘live in the now’, this means focus on what is right in front of you, give your whole attention to what you are doing at the time, don’t fret about what is round the corner.
Men are great at this, they live in the now, their thoughts are on what is right in front of them, what needs their immediate attention. They worry about what’s round the corner when they get round the corner. This of course is frustrating to women because we tend to fret about what’s round the corner before we can even see the corner.
The majority of men I spoke with, although working towards long terms goals kept their focus on the now, knowing that their actions now would have far reaching consequences, also being aware that things could change and they needed to be able to move with the changes.
It’s only when you are focused on the here and now that you can react to changes when they occur, if you only focus on the future, changes can occur and you won’t see them and therefore you won’t react, therefore you won’t adjust your thinking or actions now, and you will be stuck trying to adjust to the consequences of the changes which may be too late.
So remember next time he hasn’t phoned you for a couple of days it’s not because you have done something wrong, or because he has gone off you it’s simply because he is choosing to live in the now, and he is dealing with what is directly in front of him. You cannot expect to be the sole focus of his attention all the time.
Men don’t see things as women do, and they don’t fix things if they aren’t broken. It may be wise to take a leaf out of their book.
Blessings.