The subtle subversiveness of singletasking
When a practice of 'one at a time' becomes quiet rebellion
IN ALL HONESTY | AT A GLANCE
This week’s column is for free and paid subscribers, and it holds:
a featured story on where my attention goes
a space to deepen the conversation in community comments
Oh, and be sure to check out the last column:
Expressions of outrage
“They” want the weight of the world to feel heavier and heavier these days. To tempt us into despair, doubt and disgust. I look around me, my neighborhood, my city, my state, my country, and I see many things I don’t like. The list is long, and it keeps growing...
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I feel the mainstream vying for my attention, fighting for a chance to reel me in. With such an overabundance of ideas, opinions, headlines that shout “Look at me! Look!”, opportunities to snare my focused efforts are plentiful.
To keep up with this never-ending flow of content, it seems one must dart from here to there and there to here without much time to metabolize what’s been consumed. These days, I am quite protective of what I pay attention to online. Years ago, I developed a scrolling habit that I don’t want to go back to. After a while, I could no longer stomach the scattered, harried feeling that came along with splitting my attention in so many different directions.
But a conversation with my cousin the other day shined the light on how this battle for our attention has seeped into my days IRL…
She had recently realized how much multitasking was increasing her anxiety, leading her to feel unproductive and irritable. I couldn’t help but think about how a few weeks ago, I was regularly making breakfast, while feeding my 1.5 year old, while washing dishes while doing laundry.
So many things in my home often sound like they’re screaming for my attention. And somehow, I had convinced myself that extreme multitasking was the most efficient solution, the only efficient solution. At the same time, I was constantly surprised that the eggs were overcooked, my second son spent the morning squawking, the dishes were never quite clean and the laundry was always backed up.
My attention was going everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Since my wakeup call à la my very confused husband a few weeks ago, I’ve been experimenting with singletasking. It’s not revolutionary, and yet in a society filled with the pressure to Do More, this practice feels subtly subversive.
When I’m working on my laptop and my husband comes over to share something with me, I let him know that I’m going to take a few minutes to wrap up my email so that I can fully focus on our conversation once I’m done.
When I’m doing laundry these days, I do one load all the way through. I wash, then dry, then fold and hang and then put everything away before I start another load.
I don’t want to fall prey to the media frenzy that’s trying to persuade me to cast my attention far and wide all day every day. Instead, I am reigning it in, devoting my attention to one precious activity at a time instead of forsaking my peace for the trappings of a fast life. I am taking my attention back and generously doling it out as a way to practice being fully present. To luxuriate in the slower pace as quiet form of rebellion against society’s maniacal insistence that I am running out of time.
To the surprise of no one, the quality of my work has drastically improved. I feel less stressed. That frenzied, frantic feeling has faded, too. I’m intrigued. I’m going to keep experimenting with this subtly subversive approach.
I invite you to practice tracking your own focus. Where does your attention go? How do you feel when you spend it in this way? I’d love to hear from you in the comments.
Rest well this weekend.
This is a practice I have been called to as well. It requires me to continually come back to it and recognize when I’m beginning to multitask again. Once I slowed down and committed to doing one thing at a time, I was so surprised to learn that I’m actually not clumsy! I had just spent so many years allowing myself to be pulled in all directions constantly, no wonder I couldn’t do anything without walking into a wall, dropping/breaking things, or getting stains on all my clothes. Committing to single-tasking has built my confidence and allowed me to feel GOOD about buying myself nice things because I can now trust myself not to immediately ruin them. Thank you for this lovely post!