Hey friends! Today's topic is something I had on my mind yesterday and today. I had so many things I wanted to do and a lot of ideas to brainstorm, I started doing many stuff at the same time because I wanted to do it all and have it all figured out but I just ended up in a circle of starting everything but accomplishing a little.
Okay, this might sound weird, but since I became more mindful and my level of overall awareness increased, my "power" of multitasking got really bad. I don't know if those things are somehow related but I really can't focus on two (or more) things at the same time. For example, today I played a motivational video on Youtube and started writing down my thoughts. At the beginning I was paying attention on the words from the video but as I wrote more, I got so into it that I wasn't even listening to the video anymore. So I had to replay the part that I missed.
Some other examples of multitasking can be answering emails while making a cup of coffee/tea, eating a meal while browsing through Social media, have multiple browsers/tabs opened on your computer... Right now I am actually listening to music while writing this post. I'm sure that most people do this as well and it might not seem like a distraction but for me, it actually is. At the moment I'm listening to the song that we had at Dancehall classes so it made me stop writing to go down the memory lane, trying to remember some steps we learned, people who attended classes and so on... Sometimes it even makes want to have a dance party, no wonder it takes me ages to make a post. Now, this part when I have my dance party is actually not considered multitasking, it's just switching tasks - I stop writing a post, dance and come back to writing; I'm not doing those two things at the same time.
If you're someone who's multitasking or switching tasks, I recommend you to try single-tasking and see how it goes. I was so curious when I found out about it so of course, I had to test it and it really did wonders. I knew right away where to start - eating meals without any distraction. And it was hard, lol. I'm usually on my phone while I eat because "I want to save time and reply to messages, catch up on Social media..." so I become so un-aware of the food that I'm eating. Once you drop everything, you will realize how slow/fast you eat, you will actually pay attention to the taste and smell of the food, do you like it that way or you could add something to it next time...
Single-Tasking Tips:
- Prioritize your tasks: write down any tasks or to-do's that are not part of your daily routine, that are important, or need to be done then pick the one that needs to be done first, work on it until it's finished or for a set amount of time and THEN move to another task.
- Do one thing at a time: focus on one thing and one thing only, no matter if it's from the list you made above or just something you do daily as part of your routine.
- Be present: raise your awareness and try to be present and focused on the task. If it's something that takes a long time to do, make sure you have regular breaks.
- Eliminate distractions: I find devices and music to be my biggest distractions. Figure out yours and eliminate them as much as you can.
Benefits of single-tasking:
- it helps you focus and be more productive
- it makes you realize what is important, worth your time and effort and what is irrelevant
- it makes you more grateful, let's take eating again as an example, you will probably be so present in those moments that you will feel a lot more thankful for your food or any other things we often take for granted
- it helps clear out your thoughts knowing that you set a certain amount of time where you will do only one thing before doing another so you won't be all over the place, stressing out while trying to do 10 things at once
How can you practice single-tasking:
- eat breakfast without any distractions
- read a book without any distractions
- answer emails/messages without any distractions
- have only one browser/tab opened on your computer
- go for a walk without music
- write a Steemit post without any distractions :D
With all of this being said, I know that single-tasking might not be possible for everyone, all the time. If you have kids, let's say, of course you can't just eliminate them, lol. But I highly recommend trying to find some time during the day when you can practice single-tasking. Let me know in the comments what is the first thing that comes to your mind where you would apply this method of single tasking.
All images taken and edited by me.
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