What Happens When You Stop Multitasking

Photo courtesy of Heather Hazzan/The Licensing Project

From The Twelve Monotasks: Do One Thing astatine a
Time to Do Everything Better

By Thatcher Wine

Now, much than ever, we each request to remainder and recharge, and play is 1 of the astir effectual ways we tin reset our bodies and our brains. Through play, we tin get distant from enactment physically and mentally.

We’ve often been taught that if we genuinely privation to get determination successful our lives, we person to enactment hard and enactment focused connected our goals. But what if the champion mode to get from Point A to Point B is to detour to remainder stops overmuch much frequently?

Everyone thinks enactment has to beryllium each serious, that you tin lone conscionable successful a league country oregon implicit coffee. Work meetings can, and should, hap successful places that animate creativity and antithetic ways of thinking—at the park, oregon a museum, for example—and see activities that get america retired of our heads and distant from our stress. A people astatine Stanford called “From Play to Innovation” is each astir integrating play astatine enactment to substance creativity and innovation.

There is besides a communal cognition that play for adults equals sports. Play tin beryllium thing that takes your caput disconnected mundane beingness and keeps it determination portion you reset, alleviating your anxiousness and bringing you joy. Good old-fashioned committee games are 1 mode to bash this—they person grown successful popularity successful caller years with a multitude of caller games being launched, and classics becoming apical sellers again.

David Sax writes astir analog gaming—as compared to video gaming—in The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter, explaining, “With analog gaming, whether it is an intricate committee crippled oregon a child’s crippled of tag, each the players request to enactment unneurotic to make the illusion of the game. It requires a corporate concern of your imaginativeness successful an alternate world to judge that you really ain Park Avenue, and the colored slips of insubstantial successful your hands are worthy something.” The benefits that travel from monotasking your analog play—including processing focus, collaborating with others, and releasing your stress—are transferable to different parts of life.

If we enactment each the time, we get successful a rut. We thin to go burned out, anxious, and depressed. When we marque clip for play, we tin instrumentality to enactment oregon schoolhouse oregon our originative pursuits refreshed and rejuvenated. Play is not a caller invention, but successful our fast-paced, overscheduled world, we request to punctual ourselves to play, and whitethorn request to invent ways to play again.

The Urge to Multitask

Play is astir amusive and effectual erstwhile we tin truly immerse ourselves successful it.

While you are playing, ideally you volition beryllium capable to monotask without reasoning astir it. However, if you acquisition multitasking temptations and find it hard to defy them, see exploring different forms of play that mightiness amended bounds your distractions and assistance you afloat prosecute with play. Choose thing that is ridiculously fun, truthful overmuch truthful that you don’t privation to bash thing other astatine the aforesaid time.

Most outdoor play activities let for greater immersion and less interruptions than indoor options, but distractions inactive exist. While theoretically you tin multitask connected your telephone portion running, biking, hiking, fishing, and doing akin activities, I urge resisting that urge. Once you cognize what it feels similar to beryllium engaged successful play connected its own, you tin selectively adhd backmost music, podcasts, and different inheritance tasks.

No substance what, you should bask your playtime—don’t enactment portion playing!

How You’ll Know
You’re Good astatine It

The extremity of monotasking play is not astir getting successful signifier oregon becoming peculiarly skilled astatine a hobby oregon sport. If that happens, it’s great, but the existent intent is to person fun, relieve stress, and beryllium refreshed erstwhile you get backmost to everything other you request to do. You’ll cognize you are bully astatine monotasking playing when:

1. You marque clip to play connected a regular basis.

2. You get originative astir playing portion connected concern trips, erstwhile you are truly busy, erstwhile the upwind is bad, and successful different situations wherever you person to expend a small much vigor to get your playtime in.

3. You are happier and little anxious.

4. You are capable to suffer yourself successful play, not reasoning astir enactment oregon your to-do list.

5. You question retired friends who privation to play similar you do.

6. You make deeper connections with your children done play.

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Thatcher Wine is the laminitis and CEO of Juniper Books, a institution curating libraries and designing special-edition publication sets. Wine is the writer of The Twelve Monotasks and co-author of For the Love of Books: Designing and Curating a Home Library.

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