This week on Intent, we want to hear your tips, tricks, advice, action steps and resources on unitasking instead of multitasking. How can we put the brakes on our multitasking habits and actually–God forbid–focus on starting and finishing one task at a time?
Contrary to popular belief, multitasking is not as productive or as efficient as one may think. One recent Stanford study shows that chronic multitaskers have a harder time paying attention, controling their memory and switching from one task to another. Other studies show that multitasking may superficially get two activities done at the same time, but at the expense of the quality of how well the tasks are completed. This is hardly not surprising when you consider the number of car accidents that occur from people who are texting while driving. 
Here is another good reason to wean off the multitasking habit: longterm multitasking corrodes your sense of present awareness. Rather than completely directing your time and energy at one activity with 100% present awareness, you are caught in the mindless grey zone of not-quite-here and not-quite-there-either when you are watching T.V., finishing an e-mail, and consoling a friend on your cell phone all at the same time.
So how can we do more unitasking and less multitasking? Maybe you make a point to eat your meals without any media distractions: no T.V., internet, newspapers or books (guilty as charged) while eating. Maybe you make a conscious effort to check your e-mail only three times a day so you are not constantly checking your e-mail while you are doing something else.
And how about unitasking tips for the holiday season? How can we possibly focus on one activity at a time during one of the busiest months of the year?
Whatever advice or tips you have, we want to read about it. And hopefully we won’t be too distracted when we do.
Join Intent’s mission this week to inspire others with ideas and activities that will help us unitask, not multitask. Tag your blog posts "unitask" and we will be featuring the best weekly content at the end of the week. If you simply want to share a quick idea in the comments below, we want to hear that as well. We can’t wait to read your contributions!
The easiest way to begin to focus is to look people in the eye when you communicate to them. When a child wants attention turn away from the TV, the task at hand, and look at them. Listen! They will grow up with the same habit and this will extend into all areas of their lives. Too many of us only half listen to our spouses, friends and families. Stop what you're doing and pay attention. Some jobs require us to multitask, but turn that function off when you're communicating. Have set times to exercise, relax, and be alone. No mobile phone, no TV, learn to enjoy your own company.
Yumi…now i see…your intent today fits this theme perfectly…beautifully. thank you.
To increase inner peace and one pointedness esp as holiday and travel plans approach, I have been focussing on `coming more into my body`…being, noticing and asking inner me as much as possible, `where am i right now?` A monk recently said, `the body gives one a sense of where one is right now and asking this releases the pressure so the mental and emotional hindrances which restrict centredness and inner peace, may come out`…a zenful release from the egoic magnetic pull… to do too much and thereby lose myself throughout my day.
If i am not skillful in being in a natural calm mind i get lost and feel vulnerable and begin looking and craving … trying to hold ground on something that is naturally, constantly shifting and changing like a marble on a rolling ship…and eventually rolling over the side.
`where am i` throughout the day can be a useful working meditation practice…together with frequently being aware and grateful for breathing fresh air.
aloha
beachgirl
Wow, the question itself is a gift– as a fulcrum for awareness.
I found that once I discovered the seductiveness of deep presence through a heightened experience like birth, death, skiing… I want it again and again. And once I discovered that I could recapture the essence of that heightened presence in something as simple as pouring a glass of water, folding the laundry, anything I do– no matter what value or lack of value my mind assigns to it– I have discovered the fountain of joy.
My first step on this road was Thich Nhat Hanh's book, Peace is Every Step— urging me to "eat the orange while I eat the orange" or "wash the dishes while I was the dishes."
The road continues as it does for all of us…
Here's where I ponder that the most: http://2owlscalling.wordpress.com/
Thank you for the invitation to ponder along with others.
Nice topic, I am so much in need of an inspiration like this. So I pause from multitasking to reflect. I guess unitasking the many tasks is the way so that you do everything you want to do giving your undividing attention to one thing at a time. I do not listen to ipod or music while doing my work or any other thing. Somehow I can never do that. But while cooking I club many other chores together. Sometimes, when we are half heartedly interested in something, we resort to multitaksing that keeps it from becoming a boring ritual. Sometimes, we might want to do ten things all at once just because we like doing all ten of them or we are pressed to do all ten of them. At those times we need to go by this rule of one thing at a time as it takes the same time as multitasking but is done better. One way is to write everything down, do it in the order of preference and strike it off once it is done.
True presence is the greatest gift we can give can give each other.
UNI= One One task at a time, challenging do in this changing world, and great to aspire too!
With gratitude for all the great suggestions and reflections.
Do one thing well…take control of your task and do not be blown by forces within or without …do one thing well.
The only way that I am able to unitask is to slow myself and my thoughts down. It helps to begin with several deep breaths. Meditation increases my ability to remain in the present more frequently. It is only in the present that we are aware and actually living. Otherwise, we spend our mental energies daydreaming, recalling the past, planning for the future (as though we really know what will come), creating fantasies, and all of the myriad ways we distract ourselves from reality. We live in our heads, instead of being aware of reality as it unfolds. Our bodies are here, but where is the rest of us? This is an ideal for me, for the present. It is difficult and requires hard work and commitment, but I believe that awareness is the only way to truly live and connect with everything. I am an adult woman with ADD, so this is difficult, but it is achievable. I try not to be angry or impatient with myself, when I am unable to do this, because I know it is an intrinsic part of being human. But so is the capability of simply being aware; it is already here, we just need to clear away the distractions that keep us from it.
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