Multi-tasking is Essential and Other Lies People Tell You

After several years of pretending that I am paying attention to fifteen things at once, I have a confession to make. I am not. I am not even paying attention to two things at once. If I am checking my email and having a conversation with you, chances are I am not actually listening to you. If I am writing and listening to music, chances are I have no idea what song is playing. If I am watching the kids and updating Facebook, chances are that I don’t know who started the fight over what toy and why even though I have to now intercede.

For a long time, I tried to hide this fact, because everyone multi-tasks. Right? A quick look at job listings will tell you that employers seek and expect it. Friends and family expect it. And we all say we are doing a good job at it. This is a lie. In fact, we all think we are better than others at it. This is another lie. Other lies include, “No, I’ve never noticed how good looking so and so is” and, “I like burnt rice, really!”

Back to multi-tasking. The truth is, I suck at multi-tasking. And I know that you do too. Don’t take it personally, we all suck at it. Lots of research backs this up now, which I could track down and link to, but eh. I am blogging right now and stopping to find that research would suck me into a vortex of internet/Wikipedia/Google results from which I would emerge with recipes for Jerk Chicken and a full natural history of the sea anemone. Just trust me on this or spend a few minutes looking it up yourself. What we commonly think of multi-tasking as is actually high speed task switching. And I am formally and publicly declaring an end to my delusion of multi-tasking.

Multi-tasking, I am calling your punk card.

Here is what I know to be true:
-Multi-tasking causes stress
-Mindfulness reduces stress
-You can not multi-task and be mindful

As my organization has experienced the roller coaster ups and downs of this year (and at present, mostly downs), a wise board member of mine recently said to me, “It is a good time to be mindful.” He is right. Now is a good time to be mindful. Of course, right now is always a good time to be mindful. To stop the endless chatter in our heads, to practice full awareness of the present moment, to be here now, and by definition, to not be anywhere in the future, past or lost in fantasy. Even though his words were simple, this long time meditator reminded me that it is hard to feel stress when you are truly mindful. Being mindful necessitates releasing your expectations of what the next month, next day or next moment should be. It requires you to be fully present in this moment. It also allows you to be mindful of your own thoughts and feelings. It allows you to recognize your feelings of anxiety, sadness or anger and in acknowledging them, allows you to release them, rather than be controlled by them. We spend so much time wrestling with our emotions, strong arming our thoughts and alternately becoming absorbed in or ignoring our feelings. In doing so, we allow these feelings and thoughts to control us in their hidden grasp.

An analogy that I often think of is that pain, either emotional or physical, is like a two year old. Ever had a two year old try to get your attention? Ever try to ignore her then? What happens? The two year old gets louder. Maybe they scream, or flail, or strip off their clothes in the produce section of the grocery store. Pain, like a two year old, will try to get your attention. If unacknowledged, that two year old will try harder. And if you continue to ignore her, that two year old will ratchet it up to an ugly temper tantrum that paralyzes everyone involved and horrifies the nearby woman testing a cantaloupe for ripeness.

That, at least for me, is the danger of multi-tasking. What that two year old needs, more often than not, is acknowledgement. She needs you to put down the smartphone, get down on her level, look her in the eye and say, “I am here with you right now. What are you trying to tell me?” What ever pain we are feeling at any given moment, whether it is a backache or the sting of rejection, needs the exact same acknowledgement.

In multi-tasking, we sweep endlessly from one thing to the next, always with the hope of being efficient, maybe with the thought that when “everything gets done” then we can relax. Then we can meditate. Then we can be present, and enjoy the present moment. But do you? I don’t. Do we ever get everything done so that we can sit and be in the present moment? How much of our lives do we spend in anticipation of the next moment, thereby robbing ourselves of the present one?

Mindfulness is simple, and as is often observed, is simultaneously incredibly difficult. Being present, being mindful, is being here, now. Even if now isn’t what we think of as perfect. It is noticing the thoughts that emerge and the feelings we experience without judgment, without holding on to them or building them up. Just acknowledging them and allowing them to be, and allowing them to pass. It is acknowledging that toddler when she first says your name, instead of reacting angrily by yelling at her when she is bubbling over with frustration next to the tomatoes.

This is not to say that I will never try to do two or fifteen things at the same time ever again. I will. At some point, we all have to. What I am saying is multi-tasking robs us of being here, now, and we would all be a little better off if we acknowledged that. Since it is in being here and now that matters, I will try my hardest not to multi-task mindlessly, but to live life as mindfully as possible. So, forgive me if I don’t respond right away to a phone call or get right back to an email. I am trying not to multi-task these days, which seems like it would be less efficient, but in allowing me to be fully present, it actually makes me much more efficient at the task at hand.

Now is a good time to be mindful. So is right now. May the peace and joy of the present moment fill you.