Multitasking™

“If you can’t ride two horses at once, you shouldn’t be in the circus.” -Ancient American Proverb

While I was driving to the store today, a man drove up behind me talking on his cell phone and gesturing wildly with his other hand out the window (because of course whoever he was talking to could see him pointing). He also, for what reason I couldn’t at first tell, kept reaching his left hand - in which he was holding a cigarette - across his body to something next to him; it took me awhile to realize that he was driving stick and was using his left hand to shift, since his right was occupied. I suspect he was also filling out tax returns with his feet, but he rolled up his window before I could ask him a third time.

All this reminded me of one of the most important CollegeSkills™: Multitasking.* If you want to stay on top of your classwork and other responsibilities and still have time for sleep (or, better yet, video games), multitasking is essential. Here are a few handy tips for combining/simplifying tasks:

1) If you have a friend (very loose definitions of “friend” are acceptable) with a car, pay careful attention to remarks like, “I’m gonna need more pop soon,” or “I guess I should go buy toothpaste one of these days.” Casually mention to them that you were going to take the bus to the store later, but seeing as how both of you need to go anyway, why don’t they just drive you? Unless they really say the toothpaste thing, because nobody wants to ride in a car with someone who has bad breath.

2) Essays can be reused. Remember how in elementary school you had to do “independent reading” or whatever they called it, and every single year you claimed to read Catcher in the Rye? It works the same way in college. The trick is to find professors who use that magical phrase, “subject of your choice.” A few strategic edits and bam, you’ve written a brand new essay. The best part is, it’s not plagiarism because you wrote it in the first place!

3) Your mother always told you to wash colored clothes separately from whites (note to guys: yes she did.). Unless you have a brand new garment, it is usually ok to ignore this rule. Doing laundry in college involves gathering up all the dirty clothes on your floor and stuffing as many as possible into one washer. It is acceptable to wear jeans repeatedly, and for guys (shh) it’s usually acceptable to re-wear shirts as long as they don’t smell or have obvious stains on them. I’ll let you make up your own decision about underwear and socks – if you have money to spare (ha), the easiest way to go is just buy new socks whenever you run out.

4) A tip for "emo" kids: Kill two birds with one stone and slit poetry into your wrists.

Now that you’ve wasted all this time reading an excessively long entry on how to save time, you’d better get back to what’s really important – wandering the hall until you find someone who’s watching the game on a bigger TV than yours.

*Fun Fact: Multitasking is CollegeSkill #11 - more important than CS #12 (Rationalizing) but below CS #10 (Finding Quarters For Laundry)