Single Tasking.

Hello and Happy Thursday! 

While typing this, I read Facebook messages, record a message on WhatsApp for my brother and have a book waiting to be read next to me. I also wait for the bling-sound of an email from the University that I will attend in September. Oh, and I am also talking to my mom who sits next to me playing on her computer. I tell her how awesome my afternoon with Petit Joel, my friend and her son was. We can both talk for hours, but in the meantime, I want this post to be published as soon as possible because my book is waiting. Whooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhaaaaaaoooooo….. Slow motion sound playing in the back and deep inhaling and exhaling on my side. Stop!  Breathe! 

This morning I was in the same situations. Running around all morning, cooking lunch, preparing stuff, laundry, ironing, post office and then I remembered that I wanted to collect some blackcurrant. So I went outside with my son to run through the bushes to get it all done as soon as possible to move on to another errand when he looked at me. With a little bowl in his hand he said, “Mommy, slow, otherwise we drop them!” This made me think and realize that he is so right. It is important to single-task. Women are known to be able to multitask easily. Drive a car, put nail polish on, while talking on the phone, right? Not cool, but we could do it. Men on the other hand: Just drive! And when they talk they turn off the radio. Actually, not bad! We are even encouraged to multitask at work, to get things done faster. 

Having a list and doing one thing at a time seems to work better. I can focus completely on ONE task, finish it and start something new. It works most days for me at this point, but not always. We are all human, we learn, we figure things out. It is also a break for my ever thinking/analyzing brain to stop feeling frazzled and thrown into all directions. 

Here is a link to an interesting article I read in the New York Times a while ago. Read this story without distraction, can you? 

Humans have finite neural resources that are depleted every time we switch between tasks, which, especially for those who work online, Ms. Zomorodi said, can happen upward of 400 times a day, according to a 2016 University of California, Irvine study. “That’s why you feel tired at the end of the day,” she said. “You’ve used them all up.”

Monotasking can also be as simple as having a conversation. “Practice how you listen to people,” [psychologist Kelly] McGonigal said. “Put down anything that’s in your hands and turn all of your attentional channels to the person who is talking. You should be looking at them, listening to them, and your body should be turned to them. If you want to see a benefit from monotasking, if you want to have any kind of social rapport or influence on someone, that’s the place to start. That’s where you’ll see the biggest payoff.”

This evening my mom, Petit Joel and I had dinner and I checked my phone because it was constantly blinking. My mom started to tell me a story and I turned the phone off. Single-tasking. I listen! I even turned it upside down to not be distracted. Most of the time when I am outside, at the playground or anywhere else with my son I don’t even take my phone with me. This weight of the phone feels distracting and makes me want to check in a way “useless things that can also wait until later”. I am here, now with him playing. When he is in bed, I enjoy me-time and have the phone and gadgets on and check messages and whatnot but otherwise I feel it is more distracting when I would rather stop and smell the roses or  go on the slide with my son for the millionth time.