The Reward of Focus

 

I excel at multi-tasking.  I make necessary phone calls while doing meal prep in the kitchen.  If I’m on hold with the insurance company, I start a load of laundry in the garage and then do another household chore while keeping the phone close by.  I read email while blow dying my hair and listen to podcasts while exercising or doing the dishes.  I plan out the day and make my mental “to do” list while I shower in the morning. 

Productivity is elevated as a goal in our culture.  We push to see how much we can fit in each day; how much we can get done.  We strive for balance between all the demands on us in all our various roles.  Often this means that we are doing more than one thing at a time and usually feel “behind”.

I have been proud of all that I can do in any given day or week.  My life is full of good things; I am a wife, a mom of four boys, I co-pastor a church.  I am a writer, a friend, a mentor and influencer. I am never without many things that need to be done.  I enjoy gardening, hiking, crafts, adventure and sewing.  I cherish time with my family and friends. 

A little over a year ago I made the conscience decision to stop saying that I am “busy”.  I had found that this word was overused by me and others.  It began to sound like an excuse and complaint.  Many people often referred to me as being “busy”.  They were well intentioned, recognizing the demand on me as being great and acknowledging that I may not be able to do what they were asking of me or at least right away.  I began to feel that this label of being busy was adding in a negative way to the stress I felt. 

So, I decided to change how I talked to others and even the way I thought about my life.  I am in control of what I say yes and no to in my life.  The roles and “tasks” of my life, the things that create being busy, are mostly things of my choosing.  When I honestly assess my life, there is not much I would change!  My life is full of good things and I would choose each of them again and again.  I am not complaining!  I began to say; I have time for all that is important to me, I make time.  I am not in a rush, I take time.

I began to be more mindful and intentional in what I was doing.  If I am spending time with my kids, then I choose not to look at my phone, even if there is a notification sound going off.  If want to listen to music or a podcast while doing something else, I sometimes do.  But other times I chose not to and I just do the one thing that is necessary for that moment.

Single-tasking.  Is that a term?  What about doing one thing at a time?  Is that productive?  Is it productive enough?

I’ve noticed that there is a big impact when I chose to do one thing.  That task grows in its importance and the satisfaction in completing that one thing increases as well.  This concept is most significant when interacting with people. 

Most of us have experienced the growing awareness that someone we are talking with is also thinking about something or someone else and not fully listening.  Sometimes it is more obvious than others.  The next time you are at a restaurant, look around and notice how many people are sitting with other people and yet looking at their phone.  Sometimes there is something important to check…. But often, it is a habit that has formed and the focus of time together is divided.

When we choose to focus on someone or something, we are giving it value.  It is worth our time, our energy and creativity.  When we are managing many things at one time our focus is divided.  I am realizing too that our reward is diminished.

I’m going a step farther in my effort to re-frame my perspective on time, productivity and focus.  I am being sure that more of my day is spent doing only one thing at a time than multi-tasking.  I am being intentional about focusing on the one thing I am doing, until it is done, or until the time I set for it is over.  And then I move on to something else.  Of course, there are unplanned interruptions and exceptions.   I still multi-task.  I still feel busy at times.  But when I start to feel overwhelmed by all that is still to be done, I stop and focus on what I am doing at the moment and I give it my all.  I encourage myself by looking at what I have done.  I prioritize and remember what significance there is to the tasks I am giving myself to.

I wonder is some of the push in our culture to be highly productive isn’t an effort to be more satisfied by what we are doing.  But if we cannot truly focus on and experience the reward of what we are doing, how will we ever experience the satisfaction that we are seeking.

Life is not a race.  We all have the same amount of time in every day and each week.  By and large we all make our own choices of how our time is spent and what the roles in our life are.  Most of the time we wouldn’t really make any drastic changes to what we are giving our time too, because if it was truly that important of a change, we would have done something about it already!

I believe our level of stress and feeling busy would be diminished if we just focused on what we are accomplishing and allowed ourselves to experience the reward of that before rushing on to the next demand.  Perhaps a conscience effort to “single-task” instead of “multi-task” would be helpful.  No matter how many things you accomplish in an hour, a day or a whole week – be sure that you are allowing yourself to enjoy what you are giving your life to.  The time you have is yours; enjoy it!