Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Something that I have suffered from for many years (and especially lately) is the problem where I start multi-tasking out of synch -- I might, for example, start watching a TV show while whittling a tuna. (OK, I wouldn't, just an example). Anyway, the problem occurs when the different tasks get out of synch and I find myself starting another instance of X while waiting for Y to complete, not wanting to interrupt anything halfway.

I've been wanting to put a name to this phenomenon, and remembered the character of "Lintilla" from the Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy radio series who suffered the problem on a more personal scale -- she was put into a cloning machine which only finished half way with one clone before it started working on the next, creating a process which could never be interrupted (until someone legally redefined murder a few million clones later).

So a lintilla would be a situation where one has trouble extricating themselves because they never quite finished with everything at the same time.

I'm not sure if this is a universal enough problem to deserve a word, but in these days of divided attention and multitasking, it seemed like it might be.