Do You Multi Task?

Do You Multi Task?

In our busy, “Let’s get everything crammed into a 24hr period we can.” Way of life, it would seem that those who can multi task are taking the most advantage of those 24hrs. I recently came across an effective test to demonstrate how well you multi task. It is actually pretty easy and if you are a good multi tasker you should take this test to prove to everyone how much you are accomplishing each day. Are you ready? Test One:

As fast as you can, count from 1-12 and take note of how long that took.

As fast as you can, say the alphabet A-L and take note of your speed.

As fast as you can, say each month from January-December and notice your speed. Now take note of the combined speed of all three.

Test Two:

As fast as you can say all three in their proper combined order 1, A, January-12, L, December. Take note of how long this takes.

Test Two illustrates the effectiveness of multi tasking. If you actually took the test you know that it is quite easy to do Test One very quickly but nearly impossible to even complete Test Two without practicing first. Even after a few tries at it, doing it faster than Test One is a chore. However, people still believe they are doing better and getting more done when they Multi-Task. It is merely a myth we have come to accept which ultimately slows us down making us less productive but staying busy all the same.

Of course, this is only partially true, if you took a little time and learned the order you could no doubt get through Test Two more quickly. The reason for this is that your mind is learning a new skill, it is not Multi-Tasking, but it is taking multiple tasks and recording them as one task so that you can get through it faster. So if you have multiple repetitive tasks to do you can group some together so that your mind records them as one task making you more effective at your job. The problem is that most of the time the order of operations will change. Today’s multi tasking is rarely the same as yesterday’s or tomorrow’s and so this is one place that people are wasting time trying to train their mind (Unknowingly) to take multiple tasks and see them as one.

The point of all of this is to focus on productivity. If you would like to get more done, stop trying to do 10 things at once and focus on each task as an individual thing that you can do effectively.   

Mindset (Page 27-31)

It may be my goal to get up at a certain time to go jogging. If my mind does not really want to do this you can put money on me sleeping in tomorrow. In fact I may even be coming down with something and so it would be foolish to go outside. I can believe this or I can make myself do what I have determined I would like to do. My mind will only object for a short while, before long my mind will object if I am not doing this.

Even worse is when the mind uses time against us… tomorrow never actually comes. Your mind will set great goals for you to accomplish in the future with no intention of that future ever coming. This is a way that your mind actually keeps you doing what you really want to do after you win the argument. “I do want to lose weight and I will!”

“Okay, okay, I will help you then, finish the double fudge chocolate brownies your daughter made for you out of love… and we will sit down and make an attack plan for this. Not only that we will put the plan in motion first thing in the morning.” Meanwhile you polish off a few brownies and pass out on the couch. When you wake up you have forgotten all about the vow to lose weight and have a brownie or two for breakfast. It is mid day before you realize that you had not set your new plan in motion and since today is ruined for your diet you will try again later to set that goal and start tomorrow.

This goes on for years. It is the story of many people’s lives really. It is not always about food either that is just an easy one to think about. There are too many scenarios to even count and I am sure there is some goal that you have in the back of your mind. When will you get to work on that goal I wonder?

Don’t be too mad at yourself just resolve to change one habit today that leads you away from your goal. You see I really think that we are starting too big. We see this mountain before us and we wonder how we can ever move it. We see this great task that promises to destroy us and so we are afraid to even approach the situation. The real tool you need is not a backhoe or an earth mover, it is a shovel… one little shovel of dirt at a time is how you move a mountain. Do you think I am just saying something that sounds nice? Look at the earth that you live upon. Look at the rocks and the mountains and the ocean. If you look at a river you can see the power of a little movement over time. Rocks and great boulders are formed by the constant flow of water. They are eroded away and sometimes they change the course of the water but in the end water goes where it intends to go. You can look at the greatness of a mountain and see it’s body slowly corroded by the effects of a slow running stream. How great are you mountain before me when a drop of water can change you forever? Not one drop… but two… and three… four… how many drops does it take? It all begins with one… one drop of water that sealed the mountain’s fate forever… the water would not be moved. The mountain will accept what is acting upon it and they will become one.

You need to act upon your life in the same way as that drop of water. I am here… this is my course… you will let me go where I intend to go… and I will act upon you until we agree… one small drop at a time.

You can beat down the plan of tomorrow by making one small change today. The mechanism to change your mindset is your action step. It starts with the plan, it needs to be tracked, but the true mechanism to change your mindset and change your life is the action that you take or do not take today.

What small thing can be your drop of water, what little thing can you do today that will take you in the direction of your goals. Not the goals you think you want but the goals you have decided that you really want. Do that one thing today and be prepared to add one more step each and every day. The mechanism is your action.

Mindset (Page 22-27)

I learned this lesson a few years ago. Everyone around me was concerned with their weight and their image. They were trying to get bigger and stronger talking about this all of the time. I had done this for years as well but I would reward myself from time to time by scarfing down some snacks or a big meal in front of a movie I wanted to watch. It occurred to me that I wanted to scarf down food and snacks while watching T.V. at that time in my life. The reason I did not was basically reduced to a form of peer pressure and what I was “supposed” to do. I changed my thinking in this area and decided that I would rather be fat and happy then in shape and miserable.

This may seem strange to you, and it was to many. This is the opposite of what most people say and think. The thing is I was saying what most everyone else was thinking. There was actually some envy in the eyes of those who were staying in shape for all the wrong reasons.

In the back of my mind I knew that this sort of thinking was not really going to serve me very well for long. I achieved my goal of becoming fat (at least fatter) and I did have moments of happiness, but in the end I knew that this was not a goal I could actually stay behind. The reason for this thinking was paramount though, it was honest. I took a real look at what I really wanted to do and compared that to what I was doing and I realized that the two were very far apart.

At the end of the day I also came to the conclusion that I did not “really” want to sit around and shove food in my mouth while watching television. That sort of a life is boring to me. Furthermore, I was not all that happy with the unhealthy part of this business. So again my own thoughts betrayed me. What is it that I really wanted?

I think I wanted what a lot of us want. I wanted to be happy, healthy, and satisfied without having to do anything about it. This dichotomy is a huge part of our human condition. We want the results of a life well lived before we experience such a life. In other words we do not really want to suffer through the lessons and things that bring us to the life we hope for, we simply want the life that we hope for.

Along the way our mind will always try to shortcut the path, not to destroy us but to help us. The thing is if we listen to what our mind doesn’t understand we will become sidetracked down paths that are completely off course. Your mind looks at a box of cake mix and says, “Let’s eat that cake.” And so you break open the box but there is no cake inside only the ingredients to make a cake. Your immature mind says, “Let’s eat the ingredients then… they must be good… it is cake.” So you taste the mix but it is objectionable. Then your mind begins to relent letting you read the instructions. All along the way your mind makes suggestions to try and speed the process up. If you leave some ingredients out it will be done sooner. You don’t really have to stir that long, are you sure it needs to sit for this much time? Even during the cooking your mind is telling you to check it early and try it now. Who will you listen to? You can listen to your mind who wants to get there faster or you can reign it in and set the course for your mind so that the job is done right.

Your mind gives into your constant pressure and begins to agree with what you are telling it. The thing is your mind may still be trying to convince you that your old way of getting things done is better. If you forget about the cake and it burns, your mind will say, “You should have let me handle it.” No… you should have set a timer… for now your mind still has to learn that you are serious about taking the situation under control. If you slip on the details your mind will take that as you not being fit to run this show and overcoming that self talk can be tough.

In the cake scenario we are just trying to get a handle on the course our mind wants to take us. You have to get a handle on the course you want to go first and be sure that your mind recognizes that this is really where you are headed. So in addition to actually setting the goal or the course you have to learn to track your progress. You will sometimes make the wrong choice and let your mind lead you away too early. You have to have a record of that course so you know how to adjust. Perhaps you didn’t put in an ingredient the recipe called for. Correct your course by looking at the record and being sure to add that ingredient next time. Perhaps you burnt the cake… set a timer… do not leave it up to your mind to remember something when it does not yet understand why you are going through all of this in the first place.

Mindset (Page 17-22)

It is much better to experience life then it is to try and force it to bend to your will. In one scenario I imagine a man riding a bull for 8 seconds. The animal does everything it can to remove the man. The man tries to maintain his dignity as he rides this creature; he does a poor job with the dignity part. Perhaps he rides but he is working against the world around him. In another scenario is a man riding a horse. They work together, they respect one another. This is a thing of dignity and beauty.

When you are experiencing life from a harmonious mindset you are like the rider on the horse. He has goals and intentions and he allows the power of the animal to get him to those goals. The bull rider also has goals but he fights against the power of the animal and the two of them will always be at odds. You should never be at odds with your mind. Too often we are fighting the bull because we do not recognize that our mind is not something to be controlled as much as it is something to be used.

Controlling your mindset is not really about control at all, at least not in the forceful sense of the word. It is about steering yourself into the direction that you truly wish to go. Remember that along the way you have been telling yourself to go in another direction and so at first your mind may be completely confused and at odds with your new choices. Your mind is so powerful that it will try to course correct in order to get you back on the path that you have previously laid out. This is why reorganizing your life and your goal is so important from time to time.

You put yourself on a path long ago and your mind hopes only to keep you on that course. It does not matter that you may have made no plans or set no real tangible goals, your mind took the information you fed it and created a goal for you based on your direction. So having seen this and understanding that your information programs your life; it should be easy to understand how you have gotten to the place you are today. Let me put it another way, consider the information you have fed yourself, now look at the course your life has taken. Consider the trajectory that your life is on and you will arrive at the goals that your mind has set for you while in the absence of anyone to actually set a goal or plan. Where you are is the goal that your mind calculated based upon the information you have provided.

So now when you begin to reset the goals that you have for your life, you are also going to have to reprogram how your mind responds. Many times you have to back out of the chair and clarify in your mind that you are the one who sets the course that your mind is to follow. In the same way you are going to have to convince your mind that this new way of being is the real thing and not another plan to simply get you off of the course you had previously set yourself upon.

Let’s make this real. Let’s say that I have a new goal in mind to lose 50lbs. My old goal was to eat whatever I wanted and watch television while I did so. Many will say, “What a goal.” Yes, but the fact that many people live like this while only thinking on occasion that they need to lose weight, proves my point. What you are doing right now is the actual evidence for your goal. I am achieving my goal happily by watching television and eating because in the end that is my actual goal.

In order for the goal to change in my life I must first set that goal. I want to lose 50lbs. Okay… good… but if I sit down with a bowl of chips to watch a fat burning show my true and actual goal returns and my mind is satisfied with the slight course correction it has made. At the end of a few weeks I will not be closer to the goal I set but I will still be enjoying the goal that I set long before the new one I merely “thought” about.

Quite simply, the setting of a goal means nothing if the intention to take steps toward it is neglected; so then, following my goal setting their needs to be an action step that will begin to convince my hard working brain that this is no passing fancy. I have to start moving away from the old goal, sending my mind in a bit of a panic for awhile as it adjusts. Along the way my faithful steed will ask if I really would not rather sit and eat some chips because that was my goal for many years and I was happy achieving it.

Of course I was not satisfied with that goal, I will tell my mind, and that is why I am setting this new goal for us to achieve. In a small amount of time your mind will actually go to work helping you to achieve your new goal because it has been put on this course and it loves to stay on track to satisfy you and take you exactly where you hope to go.

Your mind is not your enemy trying to take you away from the things that you want and need in life. Your mind is the most honest part about you taking you exactly where you really want to go in spite of where you imagine and tell others you want to go. When you begin to get real with yourself about what you want out of life you can begin to program yourself to get there but as long as you are trying to fool yourself for the sake of what others might think… your mind will fight against you.

Mindset (Page 13-17)

The interesting part of the story is that I had crawled in the hole, feet first. You see my toddler head was much bigger then my body so when I did this I was expecting to simply travel through the space and probably repeat the action again and again. I had not even considered that my head would not fit because I was not all that aware of the size of my head. Think about that, a child doesn’t really see the space around their head; our human eyes don’t allow this without a mirror. So when the “I” that I could see got through the chair I was left with the assumption that the rest of me would follow.

When my father pointed out that I should remember how I got to this point, I calmed down and climbed forward through the chair. My body was free and I felt much better. I doubt that I took as much away from the experience as I am able to put into it now to the exception of this one idea, you can often times get out of a mess by going the opposite direction that you took to get into that mess.

The really interesting part about this is that at some point you will again be faced with passing over all the steps that led you to your danger in the first place. When you are traveling out of harm’s way, the sneering power that the path had on the way in is somehow diminished. Even further, I could crawl in and out of that same hole with little fear because I knew exactly how to get out. I will say that I was not quick to try my luck… but the chair and I both knew the truth.

Let me compare this to an addict. Someone who has not conquered their addiction should stay out of the alcohol aisle. Someone who has conquered their addiction can pass through it without fear. The place is weak to them and it will not create temptation. They know that getting out of that hole was difficult and they choose to avoid it without much thought. Their mindset has changed.

Do not assume that I am trying to point your mind in one direction or another. The truth is that I want us to all recognize how important it is to learn to direct our own mind rather than letting it remain in the direction of others. We need the direction of others who we trust at times but too many people are actually controlled by the news or the gossip of the day and at the root of these places is always the mindset of a few people. I am sure that it is a valid mindset, but is it yours? We do not get to say that we have control over much in this world but we still control what we think. By extension we control what we spend our time thinking about, looking at, hearing, and understanding.

The mechanics of controlling your own mindset actually begin with controlling the information that you receive. This is the old “Garbage in Garbage out scenario” It was stated in reference to computer programming. If the program you enter into the system is trash, the calculations the system makes will be trash as well. In the same way when we feed ourselves on information that does not serve the life we would like to have, hope to have, or deserve; then we are going to get that as an end result (The life that we do not want to have, hope to have, or even deserve.)

So it would seem that our place to begin is quite simple and probably the same place you have begun a thousand times before. What sort of life do you hope to have? How do you envision that your life should look today? What separates the life you are hoping for from the one you are actually living? I am sure there are actual physical and spiritual things which seem to have very clear steps. I doubt that you really know what the steps are or how to close the gap between what you want and what you have in life, if you did you would probably have what you want.

Perhaps you do have most of what you want in life, but like many of us there are still a few things missing. The worst cases are actually those who really do have all that they want and need (or so they think) these people often do not know what else to do and so they wrestle with things to no end. So I will add to this a bit by suggesting that I am not only offering you a bridge to the things that you desire in this life I am also offering you the peace and the joy that comes from being okay with your life all along the way.