BTT: Multi-Tasking

This week’s Booking Through Thursday question from Deb:

Do you multi-task when you read? Do other things like stirring things on the stove, brushing your teeth, watching television, knitting, walking, et cetera?

Or is it just me, and you sit and do nothing but focus on what you’re reading?

(Or, if you do both, why, when, and which do you prefer?)

I do much of my reading “by ear” – listening to audio books. Sometimes I listen while doing routine things in the kitchen, or ironing etc. It also happens that I listen to a book while out walking. (Not so often since I started taking the camera everywhere, though.)

But holding a book and trying to read while stirring something on the stove… No, that goes beyond my multi-tasking capacity!

I often prefer silence when I read; but if there are other background sounds I prefer my own choice (like soft classical music – nothing that demands too much attention). 

When I started listening to audio books on tapes back in the 90’s one of the reasons was that it allowed me to do other things simultaneously. But then a neck/shoulder injury made me need a lot more rest just lying on my back “doing nothing”, preferably not even holding a book. I’ve also had increasing eye problems. So nowadays much of my audio book listening is done without multi-tasking. But I still regard it as sort of multi-tasking in itself, since it allows me to feel that I’m still “doing something” with my head, even when the rest of the body is resting!

In the picture you see my “bedside equipment”… MP3-player, CD-player, and loudspeakers that can easily be switched from one to the other (or to an old audio cassette player).

My latest discovery is that I can now also borrow “streaming” audio books online from my library. The advantage is that I don’t have to queue for new and popular ones. The disadvantage is that I do have to be online on the computer to listen to them.