Something that's been on my mind lately as I've been walking through life is the amount of multitasking that's required to successfully juggle all my responsibilities. But it's also come to my attention that I do a fair amount of unnecessary multitasking (do I REALLY need to check my email on my phone while I'm sitting in the drive thru?), and as a result, all the tasks I am doing in a given moment suffer (oops, didn't realize the car in front of me was out of the drive thru because I was looking at my phone!).
Performing more than one task at a time, while easier for most women that it is men, is not the optimum way to achieve excellence (see yesterday's post). If I want to do my best at a task, then it must have my full attention.
Perhaps the best example of unnecessary multitasking happens when I'm supposed to be listening to others. I can't tell you how many times people come into my office, or my children come to me, or my husband calls me, and I do not stop what I'm doing to give them my full attention. Refusing to give them my attention has several consequences, including not being able to remember later exactly what they said and making them feel that they do not deserve priority over other tasks.
Paul tells us to redeem the time. And I want to make the most of the time I'm given, but how can I do that when I try to fit too many things into a single moment?
So, my quest for the day has been to try to unitask as much as possible. My ground rules are that listening to music or the radio while doing other things is still allowable, and, of course, tending to children in the middle of tasks is obviously required to be allowed. But other than that, each task should stand alone.
It's been really hard, and I've already fallen off the wagon twice (how can I stay caught up with my Facebook friend's statuses if I don't read FB while I'm walking or sitting at red lights?!), but I'm determined to try to do better.
What do you think? Could you become a unitasker? Or do you disagree that unitasking is the best way to redeem the time?
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ReplyDeleteThis is something I am trying to work on, too. I've realized that part of my stress in life comes from multitasking too much. It's gotten to the point that I can't even uni-relax. :) I'm usually on the computer AND watching a movie or reading while watching TV, etc. Last night I made a decision to JUST sit with hubby and watch a movie w/o doing anything else. it was so nice :)