Multitasking: 7, Car Door: 0
Seven. That’s how many things I can do at once. I discovered this by (7) taking the driver’s side door off its hinges while (6) backing the car out of the garage (5) as I tossed dry cleaning out (4) on my way to get the car serviced (3) while taking a business call (2) then muting myself (1) to yell at Silas to stay on the steps with the dogs. (This blur dredges up hazy memories familiar to new parents as we try to become the first and only people in history to add a few human beings to the mix while remaining totally unaffected on the daily.)
Note of admission: Just reading that paragraph stresses me out! To think that deranged person was raising actual children, driving on public roads, and holding grown-up conversations. She needed a nap, a lecture, and a week of doing nothing, STAT.
But instead, back then, I duct-taped myself into the car and went to the auto mechanics. I still thought I was a hotshot, with all this productivity, because I didn’t yet understand the science behind “multitasking.”
There is actually no such thing. What we proudly claim as “multitasking” is really just “task-switching,” a resource-intensive drain for the brain that often diminishes the quality of our interactions, experiences, or results, something my battered car door demonstrated quite handily.
I’d like to say I’m an intelligent person, but even after learning the true nature of “multitasking,” it’s taken me years to change. Thankfully, there are hundreds of other ‘former multitaskers’ right here in our community who are lighting this path for me. Last week, I had the pleasure of hearing some of our local first responders click off the benefits of their emerging mindfulness practices and their department’s professional development. In less than six months, the participants are reporting significant improvements in sleep, blood pressure (which they measure daily), and relationship quality. Now many years into my own mindfulness training, my progress is steady but oh-so-subtle. I just slowly, methodically get clearer, calmer, more open to other views. I’ve gotten a little stronger and a little softer at the same time.
No longer the oblivious frog in the pot, numbed by a complex stew of productivity and warmed by delusions of doing it all, I’ve had the great fortune to hop out and ask the simplest question: “What makes more sense for me than ‘multi’ madness?”
It’s taken me a decade to learn to say, “No,” more often. I’m a student of this work, not a master, but here’s what happened yesterday morning (no joke): I woke up at 5 a.m., immediately started thinking of the zillion things I needed to get done, and reached for my phone. And hit the Insight Meditation Timer app, upped the length of my usual practice by 10 minutes, and gave myself a chance to win against the tyranny of always producing.
Guess what? I finished everything I needed to do, and it was a gift of a day, cool and gorgeous. I had an hour to myself, so I went walking with my dogs, feeling grateful for the beauty and the fact that I didn’t miss it because I was at Mike’s Auto Body.
