Today I will be attending a full-day symposium on food safety.
Yes, it will be extremely difficult to unitask today especially since this is mandatory training (i.e. I think I have better things to do with my time). It will be the first time in years where I will just be listening to the speaker instead of doing a crossword or checking my Blackberry for the hundredth time.
Maybe I’lll be pleasantly surprised.
I would say the first day was mildly successful. I was extremely focused, especially in the afternoon, and actually finished one thing on my To Do list. Yet I did have difficulty…and questions: What about waiting? Is waiting in a doctor’s office a separate task to reading? And what about walking and talking? Is walking a sub-conscious activity, similar to background noise or an auto-pilot feature?
I recently read an article in Real Simple about unitasking. The author of the article, A.J. Jacobs, defines unitasking as performing one activity at a time. So in an effort to be more focused and, possibly, to complete more things on my To Do list – I’m going to experiment. For three days I’m going to do one thing at a time*.
*As I type this I have three applications on my computer running and nine tabs on Firefox open. Needless to say – this will be a challenge.