Just This Right Now

The other day I was having work done on my car.  I was told it would take four hours so Mark helped me drop off the car and then took me back when the work was scheduled to be finished…. Except my car wasn’t done.  It was going to take another 2 hours to finish the work.  This was frustrating, and also reality.  To fill the time, I sat down, and began work on a presentation for an upcoming workshop.  

Two hours later, I had completed the presentation, and had made a big dent in a book I was reading (The Mindful School Leader by Brown and Olson - highly recommend!)  I felt mentally fresh, much less drained than I usually feel after putting together a big presentation, and it had taken me substantially less time. There had been a sense of “flow” and ease while I worked.  

What was going on?  

The wifi was weak, so I wasn’t checking emails and texts.  I didn’t have the materials to work on any other projects, and there were no home chores staring me in the face.  In short, the difference was that I was mono-tasking - just working on one thing at a time for a block of time. In other settings, like when I work from home and am surrounded by other projects that call for my attention, I am far more likely to multi-task, and multi-tasking is incredibly hard on our nervous systems.  

In fact, multi-tasking isn’t even a thing. We’re really just rapidly and repeatedly switching from one task to another.  Each time we switch tasks we create “attention residue” - our brains continue to process the task we were just working on, at the same time as we try to process a new task.  When we task switch like this, we are less likely to have clear ideas and insights, and much more likely to make mistakes. Moreover, it’s energetically exhausting.  

A group of teachers last week shared that they often have to juggle requests for attention from multiple students in their classrooms while trying to work through a lesson plan and respond to other things that come up. No wonder they’re exhausted at the end of the school day!  

While we don’t always have control over where our attention is needed (like those teachers mentioned above), and we can’t set up a desk at the auto body shop, mindfulness can help us build awareness of our habits and make choices to support our well-being when we do have control.  For example, we can become aware of how often we toggle over to see if an email has come in or to check news headlines.  While we’re stopped at a red light, we can notice the temptation to check our phones and decide instead to simply be aware of breathing in that moment.  When possible, we can replicate what I now call the “auto body office”: a surface with only the materials I need for the project at hand, notifications for texts and emails silenced, browser tabs closed.

Each time we fend off the urge to switch tasks, we are conserving our energy and attention, creating space for ease and insight, and rewiring our brains for healthier habits.  If it helps, when you notice the urge, take a nice deep breath, smile, hold your attention on the task at hand (not the task you would switch to) and offer the words, “Just this right now”.

Wishing you a sense of flow and ease in all that you do,

Your CMP Family