Multi-tasking

I've prided myself on being a multi-tasker for years. Women seem to gravitate to this role quite genetically. Once we become mothers I'm not sure there is any other way to survive. But is it really the way to live our lives? I'm not so sure.

The other day I left home and half way to my destination I realized I did not have my phone. I was distraught. No phone, my goodness, how could I survive? What if someone was trying to reach me? How would I occupy my wait time at my appointment? My thoughts were cascading downward on how horrible my next few hours would be without my phone.

Then I sort of slapped myself back about ten years and remembered that many times I was without a phone and life went on. Sometimes I would just sit in a reception area and flip through a magazine or just people watch or heaven forbid, think.

Philippe Godin, the professor from Stanford, says, Compassion is paying attention. Sometimes I wonder, how often do we pay attention to another person. Paying attention is not just to be in one's presence. Because even then all we really want to do is check our email, texts, Facebook, or VM. Certainly there is something better going on somewhere.

It's almost as if there will soon come a resurgence of instruction on how to focus on one thing. This will be the new thing - mono-tasking. Everyone will rave about it. Look, I am giving all my attention to one person or seeing just one task all the way through to completion. There will be incentives for the employee who has the longest attention span to task.

Surprisingly we may get more things accomplished. Who knows?

However I must confess this idea did not come from the creative recesses of my own mind. I stole it, well, at least I stole the verbiage mono-tasking. I watched this TED video.  It's cute and it may inspire you to just do one thing and one thing well, if not today, maybe tomorrow.