The Slow Project: monotasking

{Credit where it is due - I'm hijacking Ellie of petalplum and her Slow Project here}

When I wrote about my attraction to the Slow Food movement a few weeks ago, I came away with a sense of cognitive dissonance.  


I pay plenty of lip service to the slow life -  slow food, slow cloth,  slow fashion,  slow transport. I have chosen to be 'slow' at this stage of life by refusing to juggle multiple roles and responsibilities with the main gig - parenting.

But I'm still an adrenaline junkie, and I love to multitask.

I guess the adrenaline habit is hard to kick. Particularly because our mainstream culture is all about thriving on adrenaline. We're addicted to:

 efficiency

productivity

streamlining

multitasking

 instant gratification

 convenience

I feel that I ought to be 'using my time well' (which means doing more than one thing at a time). I parent, cook, craft, ride the bike, have 'me time', socialise and blog with a sense of urgency, as though I'm lagging behind somehow or going to miss a deadline. I try to do them all simultaneously. I'm always looking for ways to get a bit of blog-post-reading done whilst paying bills via iPhone whilst pushing the boys on the swings whilst chatting to my mother whilst jotting down the shopping list and designing the next quilt. WHY?

There is. No. Deadline.

Furthermore, it seems that multitasking may well be a flawed concept altogether. I like this quote from Carl Honore, author of In Praise Of Slow:

"The latest neuro-scientific research suggests what most of us already suspect: that the human brain is not very good at multitasking. Sure there are a few simple or routine tasks we can perform at the same time, but as soon as you have to engage the brain, you really need to focus on one activity at a time. Much of what passes for multitasking is nothing of the sort: it is sequential toggling between activities.  

Changing attitudes is hard because our culture is marinated in the notion that doing more things at once is somehow deeply modern, efficient and fulfilling. But change is possible."

Anyway, I'm taking action. Well, inaction, more precisely. For the past few weeks I've been monotasking. 

I've stopped checking the phone incessantly. I've stopped switching the TV on for the kids so I can 'get something done', and trying to either get them involved or accept the fact that it is just not going to get done right now (and does it really matter?). I've opted to either read, OR blog, OR sew of an evening, instead of trying to do all three in front of the telly. In fact, it has taken ten days to write this blog post, because I've let myself be interrupted and let go of the artificial, self-imposed deadlines. Does anyone care? No. I'm attempting to redefine my ideas of a successful day... did we get some sun and air? Get appropriately fed and watered? Do something creative? Hang out with some other people? Have a good cuddle? Relate well or at least give it a red-hot go?

That might all sound a bit sickly-sweet and like I should go and polish my earth-mother halo (in a mindful, meditative, living-in-the-present, enjoying-the-journey kind of way).

And frankly, I'm feeling so darned good right now, I just might.

(Insert gratuitous shots of kidlets in 'Hudson', wearing their Dillpickle Beanies)