Pandemic Lesson #9: How Not to Live in the Weeds

For the past year, I’ve been living in the weeds. Whether these are mental weeds (details) or the plants, it really doesn’t matter; they are all details. There is a type of beauty in the weeds that one doesn’t find in the flowers, isn’t there? Like both need to exist: the weeds and the flowers. For, without one, I’m not sure I’d recognize the beauty of the other. This contrast is how we live our lives each day. It is how we judge right from wrong, good from evil, dark from light….you follow? One cannot exist without the other. The same thing is true with evil. Evil must exist for there to be good. The problem in life is when we get too much of one and not enough of the other to create the optimal mental balance. The same can be said for volume of things to get done. (OK, the Universe is playing tricks on me now because, for the past three minutes while typing this conscious stream of thinking, my space bar stopped working. Miraculously, it just started working again. Oh, it allowed me to go back to edit but not with free typing.)

Another odd coinky-dink?

No…it is volume that I need to discuss and resolve today.  I was receiving a little Universe reminder.  (Thank you!)

Here is what I mean when I say that I need to discuss volume of tasks. When I began this writing this post, I was drinking coffee, watching a YouTube video on my astrological forecast for the upcoming month (all is good!),  writing in my journal, looking on my computer to print some calendar inserts that I couldn’t store in my planner, looking up the weather forecast on my phone for adding to my journal, and figuring out just what I wanted to create in our new video game, Subnautica. (This is a really cool game.)

Now, Toby is awake and he will need my full attention. (There is a reason I mention this. Be right back while I take care of this One.)  [Ten minutes passes.]

I’m back…but for only a few minutes until something else grabs my attention. You see, there are a lot of things grabbing our attention. These are my “weeds” for it is not the type of things but the volume of things grabbing for my focus that is troubling for me. In my above example, I am routinely spreading my attention so thinly into five or six “things” at the same time.  This only gives each activity between 15-20% of my attention. (Why do I think I can give everyone and everything 100% of my attention at the same time? What is left for me?  Dear Reader, I’m learning that there may be a very good reason for this behavior to be more natural to some of us. I’m reading more on this for an update this summer. Stay tuned.)

Here is my thinking in this: I believe we think that this “split” of our attention is sufficient; upon retrospection, I would argue it is not. Do you want your surgeon, who is performing your mother’s triple bypass, to be worried about their spouse’s needs for sharing chores, needing to pick up their youngest child from school, while juggling their own need to feel better?  This this person is so busy with their mental multi-tasking that they only give your mother a sliver of that attention? Or, do you want your airline pilot so distracted in having to juggle all of their own mental tasks while flying the jet full of passengers? Right. So, the next question you must ask is this: Why do you expect this of yourself in what YOU do? Funnily enough, my keyboard once again began to be unable to type a space bar at this point, too. I’ve re-read this entire section a few times to figure out why and discovered that I need to learn my software for creating blogs. Once again, while typing this post, I’m researching HTML and block editing, then I get a “wild hair” to look up a new type of image for use in blogging. Why is this happening to me all of the time?

Because, Dear Reader, I thought this “need” originated from forces external to my own.  “Everyone else expects me to be/do/say/become……blah, blah, blah….”  What an excuse THAT was.  My question of  “Why is this happening TO ME?” is the flaw.  It isn’t to me.  I have created the internal “habit” of trying to accomplish more within the same time span, sort of a type of mental competition.  Habits can be good or bad; that is a matter of perspective, isn’t it? If we have the habit of doing multiple things all of the time, I believe I became addicted to the excitement that this struggle brought me.  Sort of a way of challenging myself, mentally, because I am bored.  (Whew!) What the excitement of the struggle does not do, however, is give me a sense of accomplishment or achievement. The task is just done, without much fanfare or notice, because I already felt the excitement – albeit negative – in the having to do all of everything at the same time narrative.    By my using the volume of things we do each day, simultaneously, as my excitement, I don’t think I’m interested in finishing the task because it does not give me any satisfaction of achievement.  Perhaps, if I were more focused on the task itself, I would feel that desired sense of achievement when I’m done? Sort of replacing my excitement of the struggle with the excitement of achievement?  The sense of achievement, of accomplishment, is really the feeling we are after when doing something, isn’t it?

I think it is.  In a study conducted with students at the University of Utah, the following was learned about multi-tasking: “The findings indicate that the persons who are most capable of multi-tasking effectively are not the persons who are most likely to engage in multiple tasks simultaneously. To the contrary, multi-tasking activity … were negatively correlated with actual multi-tasking ability. Multi-tasking was positively correlated with participants’ perceived ability to multi-task ability which was found to be significantly inflated….[T]he findings suggest that people often engage in multi-tasking because they are less able to block out distractions and focus on a singular task…”

Bingo.  I think the inability to focus has been my issue for a long time and I never realized it until my struggles within a Quarantine.  I was busy not just with tasks but the need to go places: the library, the store, the beauty salon, shopping….you name it.  The physicality of multi-tasking added to my busyness…and I never realized this aspect of my multi-tasking and its impact on my “task” multi-tasking.  Because I could no longer go anywhere,  I converted my mental busyness from places to tasks, too, so that I could have the same feeling of achievement through multi-tasking.  In past multi-tasking at that level – I’m a professional, Folks – balancing the need to be in two places at the same time (physical and mental), I could mask my need for constant busyness.  Take away my ability to “run an errand”, I found myself bored again and began trying to physically multi-task my need to get into the car to “run an errand.”  On a random day, I was mopping the floor, listening to a podcast, letting my hair get conditioned, running a load of dark laundry, cooking for Toby, while treating my bathtub with a 20-minute cleaner that I found while searching PInterest.  What I failed to understand is that each of these tasks – even though some were performed by machines – still commanded my physical attention.  Many times, the physical task is actually enhanced by a mental stillness where we can think while scrubbing our tubs or floors.  Listening to a podcast – I cannot even tell you which one – was not fruitful so I actually deprived myself of the benefit of a brain at ease through physical exertion.  (Ever heard of “Runner’s High”?) We can get a like effect in a physical chore so when I’m trying to multi-task through that, I lock myself into the busyness and miss the opportunity of brain relaxation through physical effort.  This is actually my goal of a task: to be done and satisfied.  Or, I’m missing my pay-off.

If my words resonate with you, please take a moment to click the link above for additional information from the Mayo Clinic.  In this article, one of the benefits highlighted is that physical exercise is “meditation in motion…As you begin to regularly shed your daily tensions through movement and physical activity, you may find that this focus on a single task, and the resulting energy and optimism, can help you stay calm, clear and focused in everything you do.”  Do yourself a favor, stop trying to multi-task your way through life, and take a quiet moment of reflection to see if your multi-tasking is preventing you from relaxing.  I’m going to plant my garden soon and, while outside in nature, all I’m going to be doing is sowing seeds.

Be well, Dear Reader.  Peace.