Do you ever just sit and watch? Maybe it’s your kids playing. Maybe it’s the garden growing. Or, my favorite, the way the sunlight leaks through dense trees and dances on the ground.
My quest to stop multitasking
It’s really difficult these days to just do one thing at one time. I’ve been making an effort NOT to multitask recently. Our workforce celebrates the ability to get multiple things done quickly and being able to shift gears from one thing to another. My work, and probably yours too, is very email-based, and yet my tasks happen outside of email. So, I’m expected to have my email open and be caught up, with this unspoken expectation to respond to everything immediately. If I don’t, I feel like I give the impression that I’m not working, which is silly because I’m being more productive working outside of my email. Between emails and our magnetic connections with our phones, I have realized that multitasking is just making it impossible for me to focus on anything, anytime, anywhere. Add in the overstimulation of being a mom and I’m toast.
I’ve read quite a bit about multitasking because it is connected with dementia, which runs in my family. Multitasking leads to more mistakes, less overall focus, higher levels of fatigue, and less being committed to memory (so that’s why I don’t remember half of what I read!).1 The desktop notifications for a new text message, email, blog post, photo posted to facebook, and giant sale (there are notifications for everything these days) constantly pull you out of the task that you’re doing. I cannot tell you how many times I switch to my email to look through something I archived, spend 15 minutes going through new emails, end up switching gears entirely and working on a new task for 30 minutes to then finally come back to where I was originally, but now I’m confused and need to backtrack to catch up. The research suggests goal shifting or set shifting instead of multitasking which is the act of consciously choosing to shift your focus from one thing to the other.2 Since reading this I have turned off all notifications on everything. Everything.
How to be a spectator
In my quest to ditch multitasking, I’ve practiced what I call active meditation (mostly because I’m horrible at more traditional meditations). It’s a sort of sensory check-in - what do you feel, hear, see, smell, taste (that last one can be hard). A lot of times I do this in the garden, but it could help no matter where you are when you feel overstimulated.
Sensory play is a HUGE field for toddlers as it helps promote creativity, exploration, problem-solving, build language, regulate emotions, and most importantly, draw connections in the world around them.3 As I explored ideas and games for sensory play for my daughter, I realized how much fun I found these activities and how I felt after we finished a deeply sensory activity together. These benefits aren’t just for children, they apply to adults too (as long as we focus and give the activities our attention).
Try it. Be a spectator.
Simply observe the world around you &:
untie that knotted ball of yarn that is your to-do list and gain a different perspective on what you need to prioritize
feel like you can take a deep breath again
feel inspired
increase productivity (I’m a firm believer that doing nothing is required before doing everything)
solve problems that have been haunting you
I’m speaking generally here, but of course, I’m thinking of the garden. I have been putting off fixing the trellis on my cucumbers. It’s overwhelming. I don’t know if I can do it by myself and I haven’t had any time to work in the garden with my husband (read: I don’t want to ask for help or admit that I need it). I know from experience that I will have a poor harvest if I let my cucumbers continue to grow on the ground. I also know that the longer I wait the harder it will be. So I sat in the garden, a baby in one hand as my way of limiting how much I could DO, and I took in my surroundings. What other things had I been putting off? What materials are lying around that I could use? How are those cucumbers growing? I still need to fix the trellis (update: it’s fixed), but now I have a plan, and I’m no longer stressed about it.
Have a hard time not doing anything?
hold a baby in the garden (if you have one)
bring a drink and a snack to occupy your hands
sit on your hands
bring a friend
set a timer on your phone - don’t “do” anything until it goes off
The rest of the post contains more guided activities to help you become a spectator in your garden or more generally, nature. It’s reserved for paid subscribers. I started a promotion for a fall garden challenge that I’ve recently decided I’m not going to host, but I still want to offer a discount if you’re open to supporting the work I share here. It’s much appreciated!