I’m in a hurry to slow down.
It seems like those two would cancel each other out, but actually it makes sense. Well, it makes sense to me. And in my world, that’s what matters.
First let’s ponder the term “multi-tasking”. This expression was conjured up by employers who needed another word to describe “chaotic-stressful-work overload” or “typing with one hand while answering the phone with another and taking messages with a smile on your face and a song in your heart.” Or at least they hoped for the smile and the song, even if you had to fake it.
Multi-tasking was seen for many years as a positive attribute, one that would make a job-seeker one of the top candidates for a job. Now it seems that “studies have shown” (don’t ask me which studies, I just read these things on the internet and of course they must be true) that multi-tasking is actually not all that great.
Spending your time skipping from one task to another, while trying to get many things accomplished, actually cuts into your productivity. You get more results by focusing on one task and doing it well, minimizing your interruptions. Or so the studies say. I have suspected this all along. They should have just asked me.
Of course, many jobs require you to work on more than one task at a time. You have to answer the phone, greet someone, take a message, go back to your work. Fine. I can accept that as long as each task gets the attention it needs, while it is being done. The dizzying pace of too many projects at once only dilutes the quality of effort put into them.
I’d like to strike the word “multi-tasking” from the vocabulary, please. Who can I talk to about that? The word has been responsible for many a burned-out worker who can’t seem to understand why it’s so hard to keep up and make any real progress.
Okay, now we get to the personal part. No, I’m not going to reveal to you my deepest, darkest secrets. You’ll have to wait for the memoir for that.
But in my personal life, as perhaps in yours, the expectation of doing many things at once, and well, can be the cause of much stress and anxiety. How did we get to this point? Why do we think we can split our brains to pay attention to many things at once, and who convinced us this was a good thing?
As children we were focused on a single thing at a time. Just try to get a soup ladle out of the hands of a two year-old when he is fascinated with it. He may want to sleep with the darn ladle, he thinks it is so fantastic. He has to carry it around with him. He thoroughly explores what this thing called a ladle is, until he has it all figured out. Then he goes on to the next thing.
I am at a point in my life where I’d like to focus my energy on those things that are most important to me. A slowing down, if you will, of any frantic activity that does not serve my life well. I don’t know when I got to this point, and I’m sure I resisted it for a while because it seemed to herald a certain “mature” attitude that I was not ready to admit. In this case, mature means “not young,” and God forbid I would admit that I am not young. But being mature brings with it some knowledge, and hopefully wisdom, that can be useful.
So impatient am I to slow down, that I will put the brakes on an activity as soon as it appears that it is not worth the stress it will produce. It takes some discernment to be able to spot what needs to be tossed out, but with time it has become easier. And this has served me well, and brought me more peace.
As for recreation, I will admit to now enjoying doing the newspaper crossword puzzle more than going to a movie. I like reading better than watching television, with its fast, flashy commercials and dopey dramas that make me laugh at their attempt to be serious. When I talk to someone, I want to give that person my full attention, rather than be in a hurry to go back to multi-tasking.
I guess I’ve realized that I am mortal, that wasting my time on something not good for me is actually wasting a part of my life. Life is precious and time should not be wasted. I knew that all along, but now I truly see it.
And although I can’t slow down time, I can use it to enjoy and appreciate the life that I have, one task, one person, one experience at a time.
Published in The Daily Telegram, Adrian, Michigan on November 4, 2006
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