Multitasking = Doing Very Poorly Each and Every Tasking

Finally, finally, I have been able to rescue some pictures from my broken WD MyBook external hard drive, and I've reposted several posts from 2012 with pictures this time. I'm not buying WD products anymore due to lack of durability; Seagate HQ is a few miles away, so I can get "local" hard drives from Best Try, LOL. Enough meta-discussion.

This is another no-recipe post. Lately, I've been making other people's recipes, and I guess it's a derivative work if I veganise/deglutenise them, but I'm not going to post the full recipes. I made peanut butter cookies and chai shortbread from Vegan Cookies Invade your Cookie Jar by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. The PB cookies were for TC and I gave away most of the chai shortbread.



In the process of rescuing pictures, re-posting posts, and curating my Instagram feed, and also reading Anne Rice's Ramses the Damned, I realised my power to edit my own past, to control how others consume records of it. Cue maniacal laughter. Reading old diary entries and LiveJournal posts has always been an excellent way for me to generate compassion for myself, and that's the frame in which I read my past (otherwise I think I'd go mad). Fortunately, I have never been the victim of systemic oppression nor have I had any tragedy of great magnitude before becoming a legal adult, or even since then. It's the everyday sadness, mixed with a great deal of naivete and lack of resilience, that makes reading my past and seeing what came out of it a trying exercise.

[caption id="attachment_3328" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Tea, anyone?[/caption]

 

One consistent thing since very early in my life has been writing and storytelling. My Virtues pick for today was Zeal, and the Practice of Zeal includes the affirmation, "I have a deep sense of purpose." That much, at least, is evident when I go through my old pictures; writing and vegan baking are very important to me on the level of being a Purpose with a capital P, dare I say my primary Purpose.

[caption id="attachment_3329" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Don't mess with a vegan holding a Vitamix tamper...[/caption]

Now, do I get paid for fulfilling my Purpose? No, because I'm not a food writer or a personal health coach as my full time job. YET. However, I'm New Agey enough to know that monetary valuation shouldn't--and doesn't--dictate my highest concerns. Yesterday I had to describe a technical part of my real job to a consultant, who rudely remarked that [this part of my job] must make me the life of the party. I was glad they couldn't see the eye-roll to that uncalled-for snipe. Knowing myself, that my job is just that and not a career (since job does not intersect with purpose but peripherally), and that I'm a highly educated and attractive individual, I was able to brush it off. Hell yes was I going to blog about the ignorance of other people, however.

[caption id="attachment_3330" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Meow.[/caption]

You know what can derail you from accomplishing your Purpose, much less give you the space to discern your Purpose? Multitasking.

The link doesn't work now since I began drafting this post months ago, but I saved this quote from Jeff Angus' blog about the dangers of multitasking:

This also relates well to the process over outcomes mindset that is often preached regarding fitness and training. The process (focusing on single tasks and getting things done) leads to results, which leads to satisfaction. As I mentioned before, this loop supports itself. But a focus on the outcome (some distant date in the future, not having anything completed, being swamped with work) often leads to frustration and stress-related busyness instead of any real productivity or sense of accomplishment.

 

 

 
As a corporate wellness professional, multitasking is one of the devils plaguing unhappy employees. Science supports this one, humans.

As a religion scholar, Buddhism practitioner, and recovered bulimic, "one thing at a time" is not just for AA. It's for everyone. Focus!

Unsolicited life advice for improving focus:

• Count like Dracula. It was said that vampires couldn't pass by piles of little things (stones, pennies) without counting them. Try pausing and counting three deep cycles of breath and random times during your day. Try counting chews (25 is a good number to start). Figure out how many steps it takes to get from one side of your bedroom to the other.


• Do one thing at a time, starting with...how many browser windows do you have open? That's what the "Reading List" is for. It's the Internet; chances are, you don't have to read it now.


• Schedule, schedule, schedule. Or make lists. If you organize yourself before you start your day or at the end of the previous one, you'll be better able to plan and do things in bits instead of trying to do everything at once. The cat will get fed, and you'll fit that walk in, just not at the same time. Who knows, you may even find some "extra" time to read some more of that gripping novel...

Once you focus your mind, you can rule the galaxy! Or at least rule your next project. One can dream.

Like what you see? Hit me up at gothicgranola.com/coaching for more unsolicited life and health advice.