Monday, April 2, 2012

The Art of Doing One Thing at a Time

Reading "Always-on/Always-on-you: The Tethered Self" reminded me of a recent article sent to me titled "The Art of Doing One Thing at at Time."

I know we all feel tied to our work all hours of the day. It takes restraint not to respond to a boss's email at 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday or on a 'supposed' vacation day. I'm sure many of you share these same struggles as me. I know that I should be more present that I am missing out on some of life's special moments because I'm checking email or even Facebook. My phone is nearby and that means I'm staring at it.

There are days at work where I feel like the only thing I get accomplished is answering email. That's why the article on doing one thing at a time resonated with me. It states that through all the multi-tasking, we are really more unproductive than we would be just focusing on just one task at a time. It makes sense in theory, but harder to deploy in real life.

This is a topic that we have previously covered in this class, but I do think it's a growing problem. What do you think? Are there ways that you are finding it possible to be more present and less tethered?



2 comments:

  1. I have the same problem! I have to make a conscious effort to "un-tether" when I really need to focus -- no phone, no facebook, no emai!

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  2. I also have this problem.I am so use to multi-tasking that when I am doing one thing at a time I often feel that I should be doing more. Even though, juggle multiply things at one time can be more stressful. I feel like I accomplish more when I have tons of things to do.

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