Training Log by Lisa Zancanella - Multitasking is difficult

The people that say that millennials are a generation of multitaskers probably skipped my generation, or just skipped me. 

Considering that I can’t even write a text message while listening to someone talking, this week´s big question mark is how will I smile, look at the judges, whilst checking the right pours, and explaining the presentation - all at the same time.

I’ve been trying to brew precise pours with podcasts in the background to get my focus practiced, and I found out that sometimes I don’t listen to them nor focus on the brew.

The aspects of this competition I thought would be “easiest” are now the ones I’m uncomfortable with. Which is good, after the Nationals I really aim to be a different - hopefully improved - competitor.

For years and years, the art of being confident in public speaking was naturally practiced, because it was considered the most efficient tool to express ideas. Today we don’t seem to really need that skill to communicate orally, we can easily rely on technology, sadly we only practice deliberate oral speech when specifically needed - like this competition, for me.

For the next week the focus will be on public speaking, trying to be comfortable with the brewing and at the same time understand completely the concepts behind the presentation, to make it a logic process, not requiring to mechanically memorize it in order to perform well in front of the judges.

Competing is definitely a way to test our limits, but for me, it is also considering so many different aspects and if they correlate or not, which is causing me to think twice about things I always let happening automatically. 

The goal will be to brew while talking and smiling, and also pick the pizza for the evening.