Life after graduation is weird. I have way more free time now than a few months ago, when I was working myself to death finishing my graduate porfolio, but I’m by no means idle. Doing a lot of good work for RainTown, and working on Special Project (which I should hopefully be announcing in a real way soon).

Today, I feel like I’m doing a million things at once. Some of them include:

-updating my Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts so that I look Professional, Hire-able, and Awesome

-managing my spending habits and building a budget (using Mint.com, which is a pretty cool site)

-purchasing a domain name so my website (this website) looks more professional

-registering for KidLit Con 2011

-buying Sweetly, by Jackson Pearce, from Powells

-lurking on twitter

And that’s not even counting things like listening to music, making lunch, etc.

According to a study in Psychology Today, multitasking actually makes each task take longer, not to mention makes you a little crazy. This doesn’t really surprise me. I actually usually hate multitasking. I certainly can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. A good way to make me totally wig out is for more than one person to try to talk to me at once. I get crazy and annoyed, really fast. But, when it comes to the internet, I don’t give it a second thought. I think it’s because while I may have multiple tabs open at the same time, I’m really only focusing on one at a time. I may go back and forth, or I may switch to another one to look up a reference or find a link, but I’m usually only focused on one real task at a time.

For instance, I know I can’t multitask while I write. I normally have music going, but I have to turn it off when I write–or, at least make sure its classical music, techno, or something else without lyrics. Ambient noise is fine, as long as I don’t have to think about it.

I’m multitasking today because I don’t really have a set goal. There are a lot of things I want to get done today, and some of them are very related, but I don’t have something specific (like an assignment or an essay) to complete by a specific due-date. Such is working from home, I suppose. If I’m going to get anywhere as a writer, I need to be able to set my own deadlines.

I’ll pencil that in for tomorrow.