Doing Less and Accomplishing More

Mul­ti­task­ing became a major term a few decades ago. The world sped up. Advanced elec­tron­ics gave us the capac­ity to talk on the phone and drive at the same time. Look around the air­port. Work con­tin­ues. Lap­top com­put­ers, cell phones, and Black­ber­ries abound. Peo­ple hunt for Inter­net sig­nals like a Bas­sett Hound snoop­ing out a dog­gie treat. We really can do three things at once! The only trade­off is in our mar­riages, our dimin­ish­ing friend­ship time, and our health. What a deal! The rush of grandios­ity is seduc­tive. Time is con­densed. We have become gods mov­ing infor­ma­tion at light­ning speed. We make it all hap­pen by push­ing lit­tle but­tons and hold­ing lit­tle gad­gets to our ears.
Decem­ber is the most demand­ing month of the year. It takes mul­ti­task­ing to get it all done — or so we think. Add a lit­tle bit of per­fec­tion­ism and inde­ci­sion to the mix, and you have stressed out, fraz­zled peo­ple headed toward emo­tional melt­down. There are some prac­ti­cal ways to han­dle the sense of sea­sonal over­whelm. Here are some sug­ges­tions: do one thing at a time; make deci­sions promptly; do not waste a moment second-guessing your­self; stop hav­ing imag­i­nary crit­i­cal inner con­ver­sa­tions; get to the heart of what really has to hap­pen; ignore cul­tural trivia; focus on the tasks instead of the flaws; use caller ID to screen sales calls; close your eyes and count to twenty between tasks.
The last one is the most impor­tant tac­tic. You will cut through all sorts of busy­ness muck by let­ting your spirit dis­cern what really is the next thing to do. Let your soul catch up to your actions. Now let it deter­mine the short­cuts. Twenty breaths between projects and events is far supe­rior to the time spent hav­ing to cor­rect the mis­takes you make by mul­ti­task­ing. Har­ried soc­cer moms are the most likely dri­vers to run stop signs. Tex­ting while dri­ving has killed peo­ple. For­get­ful­ness accom­pa­nies men­tal strain. At that point you spend huge amounts of time back­track­ing to find things.
Make friends with this one day. Respect its pace. Get out of the mind­less trances of those around you. Relax. Choose. Act. Relax.