The Sane Way to Multitask
A couple months ago I wrote a blog entry about the advantages of simply doing one thing at a time.
Bill, one of our blog readers, commented on it and pointed me to another great blog posting called “Discover Why Multitasking Damages Your Business and How to Fix It.”
This article introduced me to the fact that human mind is a “sequential processor” – meaning that we are actually not designed to do more than one thing at a time.
According to Jonathan Jordan, author of the blog, multitasking is not only impractical and counter-intuitive, but it’s actually not efficient because it tends to result in so many more mistakes.
I bought into this theory, and I take it to heart whenever I can. But it’s a fact that the evil monster of multitasking is not completely avoidable unless we are hermits in a cave or some such thing.
Sometimes, we just have to do more than one thing at a time. Especially if we have jobs… or friends… or children… or partners… or…
So anyway, recently I stumbled upon this zen parable:
Seung Sahn would say, “When you eat, just eat. When you read the newspaper, just read the newspaper. Don’t do anything other than what you are doing.”
One day a student saw him reading the newspaper while he was eating. The student asked if this did not contradict his teaching.
Seung Sahn said, “When you eat and read the newspaper, just eat and read the newspaper.”
I love this, and I’m not exactly sure why. I think what Seung Sahn is implying is that it’s okay to do more than one thing at a time, as long as you are present with both things, and those things work in harmony together.
This doesn’t mean than I give myself permission to simultaneously email/facebook/write/talk on the phone/ad nauseam… although I admit I have caught myself in this scenario once. but as long as I can find two tasks that compliment each other, that’s a good start.
If you’re gonna mutlitask at least be mindful. Catch yourself. Notice what you’re doing when you are doing it. Perhaps you’ll enjoy the experience more or create some space to do less of something that’s not really serving you.
Peace,
Amy
