I woke up today with a single question. What if I did only one thing at a time? What if, instead of eating breakfast while reading a book, I simply ate breakfast? What if, instead of watching television while I exercise at the gym, I just walked? What if, instead of doing dishes while I talk on the phone, I attended only to my conversation? I can hardly imagine it; it sounds like a brave new world.
I am a world class multi-tasker. It suppose it started with my first year of college. My son was a toddler and I was convinced that multi-tasking was a matter of survival. I learned to make peanut butter sandwiches and study for tests at the same time. I also learned to never fully attend to any one thing.
What happens when we give our full attention to the tasks at hand? Perhaps time expands to meet our needs. Perhaps our relationships flourish. Perhaps we finally taste the sweet butter on a biscuit, smell springtime in the air, see the smiles on the faces of the people we pass and experience the simple pleasure of soap bubbles in the kitchen sink. Maybe we never finish reading War and Peace. That's OK too.
Debbie--I finally got back to your blog space and read the last two weeks. You have such superb insights. I love how you take one clear idea and put it out there with such depth. I hope you will keep these blogs and rework them into a book. They are beautiful, insightful, and will touch so many people.
ReplyDeleteAs for today. I do the same thing you describe--I sometimes even get a pile of laundry ready to fold when I know I am going to call someone on the phone. But the truth is, I miss the small nuances in the conversation that way--I am neither as responsive or receptive as I want to be...the best conversations are when I lie, still on my bed, breathing in and out with the one on the other end of the line...listening and responding in a rhythm borne of doing just one thing at a time, and doing it well with all of my heart. Thanks for reminding me of this. A.
Multitasking has become a huge and hot issue were I work, because more of it is demanded as money is short and positions can't be filled. Two things have come to light: 1. The multitasked items often aren't done well, and 2. multitasking really stresses people out. I think it works best when the tasks are very different. My mom used to knit Afghans while watching TV or listening to music. By this time the knitting process was almost automatic, like the meory of what to do was in her hands. And the TV or music didn't require full attention -- I don't think she would have knitted during a fast paced mystery movie or a complex new piece of music. But at work we don't have this kind of multitasking -- it is more do this, what about that, and the tasks all require more or less similar intellectual resources. So none get done well, and everyone is stressed out and grumpy. If the task is important, it desrves our full attention, even if it is just grooming the dog. (I never finished War and Peace, can't even remember if I started it....) Now the trick is how to arrange ones time to limit the multitasking. For me, retiring should help a lot.
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