So this morning I had plenty of time to do a meditation before work and it was wonderful! However, as I started my meditation I had a thought about how peaceful meditation is when you find that single-pointed focus. Whether that focus be on my breath or imagined light building in my mind given by the Buddhas, or the person/people I'm imagining as perfectly happy and free from suffering it doesn't matter. It's the fact that everything is calm, peaceful and there's only one thought going on. The single-pointed focus makes everything else pale in comparison, fade away into the background or wherever it goes, and the swirling thoughts that are usually floating around me fade away. Yes, these thoughts that I'm writing about were floating through my mind and I allowed them pass by, thinking to myself that they'll come back and I can blog about them later! Sure enough, 16 hours later, those thoughts are back and here I am blogging.
So here's the thing about this single-pointed focus - I used to be amazing at it as a kid! My mom always said that when I was watching Sesame St. there could be bombs going off around me and I'd never notice.
Flash forward to my teen years and I found it difficult to study in complete silence. I needed background noise to stay focused. I could have the TV on or the radio, or even the noise of other kids in Prep, it didn't matter. My single-pointed focus was gone.
Then, as an adult, it became a source of pride that I could multi-task. The more things you could focus on at once, the more efficient you were. Right? Carrying on a conversation while cleaning - easy. Planning a lesson while talking to a client and scheduling the day? Definitely a bonus! Sending emails is nearly always done while doing other tasks. That's what makes someone a hard and efficient worker, right?!
I'm not so sure now. Since beginning to more fully understand the peace that comes with single-pointed focus, I'm starting to question the effectiveness of multi-tasking. I remember reading somewhere a few years ago about a study that showed how employees who were not good at multi-tasking were actually more efficient and effective employees, while those who were always doing 2 or 3 tasks at once took longer to complete each task and had more errors in the tasks.
So I started noticing myself...I usually have the TV on and am doing work in the evenings. I definitely get more work completed in a quicker fashion on nights I decide to keep the TV off. Then, I am able to more fully appreciate and enjoy the shows I'm watching if I'm not also working during watching. It seems like my childhood ability to tune everything out except a TV show has returned. And I quite enjoy it!
So I start to wonder if this is a personal thing or universal. I'd be curious to see how many people are more efficient when not multi-tasking and how many actually strongly benefit from multi-tasking. Do other people feel more peaceful, more accomplished when they focus on one thing and work to completion? Or do people like to have check off multiple tasks at once to feel accomplishment?
Or is it just me w/ a little kid's ability to tune out the world and focus on one single thing? I sure hope I'm not the only one!
OM AH HUM
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