This one is a double-edged sword, but here it is: I’m good at doing things quickly and efficiently.
I read fast, I cook fast, I clean fast, I walk fast, I listen to podcasts fast (double speed!), I fold laundry fast, and so on.
Slow is not the name of my game.
This is good in many ways because I’m able to do a lot of things in the hours that I’m awake! And I rarely waste time over-analyzing or over-preparing.
The problem comes when I do something too fast, and I choose speed over accuracy.
Sometimes I miss an important step in directions.
Sometimes as a student, I wrote a number so fast, it looked like another number, and I got math problems wrong. Or I’d do the complicated part of a problem right and put a decimal in the wrong place or miss a negative sign.
(Just this week, I clicked the wrong answer on a biology quiz because I read it too fast. And I KNEW the right answer.)
Sometimes I buy the wrong thing at the grocery store because I don’t take the time to look carefully.
Also, since I like to do things fast, I sometimes feel frustrated when I have to work with people who do things slowly or inefficiently. Then I have to remind myself that the way the other person is doing things is not wrong; it’s just different than the way I do things. And it’s an opportunity to grow in patience!
Planning ahead. If my husband springs a last-minute car adventure on us, I can get together the required food and gear for the entire day. I can plan out and prepare a week’s worth of food for a cross-country car trip so we don’t have to stop anywhere to eat. I can figure out in a second the order in which my children need to brush teeth or bathe or do their chores so as to minimize inefficiency and squabbling.
Interestingly, this ability does NOT encompass planning ahead years in the future. I can plan ahead maybe a few months, but I don’t have long-range goals and plans. I guess you can say I live in the near-future moments. Or maybe I’m mired in them . . .
I’m a little jealous, because I’m pretty much the opposite! I tend to be pretty methodical and perfectionistic about most things. I’d love to get things done quicker, especially boring things!
I can recreate pretty much any dish. If I eat a meal or take a bite of something at a res I can recreate it at home. Also if I read through a recipe in a cookbook then I just make it without measuring.
I really like to plan for trips. The research aspect of it is very enjoyable to me and I will happily while away many hours at it. I believe that I am good at it. Have been told that I am. I also really enjoy researching and giving thoughtful gifts. I mentally file away something that someone said that they have an interest in or that they may like to have. Because I so rarely can immediately find something in a brick and mortar store, I may spend weeks mulling things over and looking online before I buy either via the internet or in an actual shop. I wish that I could make a career out of either of these pursuits!
Growing vegetables and herbs. Flowers not so much, probably because when we were really short on money I would not grow anything we could not eat, so my experience with flowers is years behind my experience with edibles.
Oh my goodness! My mother-in-law has that same skill!! I’m always amazed at how much she can accomplish in a day. She moves fast and it seems like she rarely ever stops.
I think I’m really good at seeing the good in people and/or situations. I don’t ignore the bad, but I can find the silver lining easily.