I was on the phone with my mom, doing what I usually do when I’m at home on the phone-loading the dishwasher, unloading the dryer, folding clothes. In constant motion. Mom asked to speak with Celeste, who was quietly sitting on the couch, watching a show. As soon as I handed my daughter the phone, she immediately stood and started futzing around, moving things from here to there, her shoulder pinning the phone to her ear so she could use both hands like I do. It seemed as though she didn’t think it was possible to talk on the phone while sitting still.

Likely because it’s something she’s not once seen me do.

I recently read about a work-from-home mother, Alana Morales, who claims she’s the queen of multi-tasking, saying she “lacks the ability to do less than three things at a time.

“For me, torture would be to sit on the couch doing absolutely nothing, knowing my kitchen was messy and my kid’s clothes needed washed,” she wrote. “After about 19 seconds, I would begin to tremble. After a minute I would look like I was going through detox. After five minutes, you’d have to strap me to the couch because that’s the only way I would be able to not do anything.”

She admitted there’s a downside to her efficiency. “When I sit down to watch a movie or TV show, I’m still working or thinking about working or feeling guilty about not working.”

It’s a feeling with which I’m completely familiar.

I’m not sure when “multi-tasking” first joined our vocabulary, but the term now makes me wince, especially when I hear it used as though it’s a positive thing. Many businesses embraced the concept of employees who could perform many tasks at the same time and began “cross-training” their staff members so each was capable of performing the other one’s job. Once this cross-training was achieved, downsizing often occurred, with the responsibilities of the slashed positions being divvied up among those who remained.

And those who remained were forced to juggle more assignments and responsibilities than ever before, frequently switching from one project to another, forever prioritizing which is most urgent.

With fragmented thoughts and minds that, although still working on one task, have already moved on to the next, these employees are expected to give 100 percent (or, more likely, 110). They become so accustomed to juggling more and more pins at the same time they don’t notice multitasking spreading into other parts of their life.

They don’t notice that they’ve started to view a walk downtown or a drive in their car as intolerably unproductive unless they have a cell phone pressed to their head. Or that they have more eating utensils in their desk drawer than at home in their kitchen. Or that they’ve begun carrying separate calendars for each family member.

Instead, most multi-taskers seem proud of their productivity, rattling off their responsibilities with that same strange mixture of self-pity and glee as a four-year-old with a bandaged scratch. Instead of seeing it as a consuming distraction, they brag about how much they accomplish.

People who are compelled to fill every quiet moment with a phone call or some kind of e-stimulation are depriving themselves of a much-needed reprieve. I worry that habitual multitasking will condition our brains to an over-stimulated state, making it difficult to focus even when you want to. Thoughts are too fragmented. They come in short bits. Like a perpetually scrolling to-do list. Get milk. Get kids? Schedule meeting. Work out. Got shoes? Design ad. Cancel appointment. Call boss.

It can’t possibly be good. You can’t turn on the TV without seeing a commercial for an antidepressant or sleep aid. You can’t talk to a doctor without hearing about the dangers of stress. We flip through channels, skim the headlines, and hammer out emails so fast we don’t slow for punctuation or capitalization, resorting instead to acronyms and emoticons.

It’s like living an index.

Yet we keep piling it on, accepting it as our lot. And I can’t see it changing any time soon. We’ve become too good at it.

And our children, following our example, are becoming good at it, too.

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