On Facebook the other day, I read a rather brilliant post by a rather brilliant member of the faculty in which she described trying to choose a “theme” for 2010 – the “theme” being a more general but still effective way to focus one’s energy than the usual set of resolutions. I’d been toying with a short list of resolutions, but honestly they’ve lost their charm. Read more fiction? Do one drawing a day? Be more patient with the girls? All (and suchlike) are less things that merit some sort of firm “resolution” and more like things I ought to do just to be a decent person.
But a theme! This, I could get behind. I mused about her examples (and several examples offered by others who had adopted similar “themes”) and about a possible theme for my own 2010. Then, this afternoon, a lightning bolt leapt from the radio while I was listening to “Car Talk” and struck me in the head: “monotasking” – defined online as “the carrying out of one task at a time; single-tasking.” Inevitably, there are zillions of resources on the web about monotasking, such as “6 Reasons Monotasking Will Help You Get More Done Than Multitasking,” some of which I’ll peruse (one at a time).
This afternoon’s epiphany perfectly complements a line from a novel that I have been repeating in my head since reading it: “Now we’re doing what we’re doing now” (uttered [as it happens] by the cold-blooded criminal Parker, in Richard Stark’s thriller Firebreak). I hope this mantra helps me do a bunch of good things: focusing on the girls when I’m with them (even if they’re each doing and wanting something different), taking up and completing discrete tasks on the job(s), checking Facebook and Twitter and email less frequently, enjoying a meal in its own right rather than a chance to read something and email and eat simultaneously. I might even be able to go several consecutive wakeful hours without using my iPod Touch.
Beyond those rewards, though, I also hope that monotasking will help me feel less pulled-apart and frazzled and frayed and disgruntled and dissatisfied – adjectives that certainly applied to 2009. Now I’m doing what I’m doing now. Next I’ll do something else.
I believe it’s also called living in the present. I do it all the time and LOVE it!
Thanks for linking to my article re: monotasking.
I must say, I also like the idea of a theme vs resolutions. If you need any help with that, feel free to get in touch.
OMG, I was listening to car talk and also got hit with the “monotasking” idea! I love it and will commit to monotasking in 2010!
I’ve been working on this one, too, in part because I tend to forget things if I’m juggling too many ideas/tasks/to-dos at once. Interestingly, I’ve found my productivity rises when I work away from the computer part of the day.
We haven’t had a working computer at home for almost a week, and though frustrating at times it has also been enlightening to see differently how I use my time when it’s not around. The children’s entertainer Ken Lonnquist has a wonderful song about TV being a “time vacuum” and being online can very much be the same.