One thing at a time
Sounds simple, even writing this felt difficult at times. Maybe it’s social media absolutely plummeting my attention span. Perhaps it’s how my brain functions. Probably both among other stuff. What I’m getting at is a daily occurrence, it’s hard to do one thing at a time, even if that means thinking about one thing at a time. Of course there are tools to help with this like meditation, visually clearing your area, getting rid of excess belongings, exercise, etc. But that’s a much larger realm.
What I’m getting at is during work I try to focus on one thing at a time. Work is all about getting things done, being productive, the more the better. Often that translates to multi-tasking: Knock this quick thing out, then go back to what I was working on. Oh, someone messaged me, let me reply real quick, now onto another new thing. Let me check this email. My phone vibrated, let’s check it. Sound familiar? This could go on all day.
Don’t get me wrong, emergencies happen, people need a quick response. There’s a time to mentally switch it up. But when it’s possible, my work can be scheduled for the day and I can typically work on only that. Even further, I can focus on one thing at a time when the work is broken down. And that’s where basically a flow state can happen. Before I go on any further I must say this is a learning experience and by no means am I practicing this consistently. I’m not a robot, I’m a silly normal human with their ups and downs.
A strong examle of a specific focus is when something is deploying or compiling, watching that status instead of checking on other stuff. Literally just sitting there and being patient watching the bars fill up. Typically if something was going to take a bit of time, I’d go try to chip away at something else or veg out for a few on you-name-the-distraction. My little peanut brain tells me to out of habit. This practice is trying to break that cycle for the majority of time.
A pomodoro or similar structure can also help. Working in blocks of time and then getting a break before going to the next focus phase. Say 30 minutes working, then a 5 minute break. This short break is where that circus music brain can come out to play. Or another option, get up and walk outside for a few minutes if you can, refocus your eyes on different distances than a screen or the same room. It may sound dumb, or overly simple, but that’s the beauty of it.
I’d probably assume the majority of people work, work, work until they are hungry or lose track of time, because I’ve seen this and been it. The endless list of stuff to do until our brains are fried, we have a headache, and literally need to walk away from bad screen for the day. This habit breaking structure can alleviate getting to that point, and usually produces better quality results. It sounds slower, like jeeze, really, you’re going to watch something compile? Yeah why not. Lean back and relax for a second like Dennis Nedry from Jurassic Park did, look how well that went!