Tasks, Tasks, and
More Tasks
By Ann Michael Henry
I always marvel how a comment or an observation
can get someone going. While getting my hair done recently,
I was chatting away with my stylist and one such moment
occurred. Before I knew it, Michael was on a rant. “I
don’t know what’s wrong with us. We are always
busy. Going here, going there, always in motion. Busy, busy,
busy, yet we never seem to get anything done. We’re
always complaining that we don’t have enough time
for family or friends or for projects around the house let
alone time to get the groceries or do the laundry. Yet,
we go, go, and go. Oh, and while we are on the go, we are
chatting on the phone, often while driving without a hands-free
device. And multitasking is like the national pastime…let’s
see how many things we can do at once! Yet, we never get
things done. At the end of the day, we are kvetching about
how little we were able to get done. Yet, we are exhausted
from being on the go and busy, busy, busy all day long.
It just doesn’t make sense.”
Sound like one of your days? Well you’re
not alone. In his book, The Age of Speed – Learning
to Thrive in a More-Faster-Now World, Vince Poscente
shares some incredible statistics:
-
91 percent of Americans watch television
while they eat.
-
26 percent of Americans admit that they
“often eat while driving.”
-
35 percent of us eat lunch at our desks
while reading, working on the computer, or making and
receiving phone calls.
-
Brain scan studies reveal that if we
do two tasks at the same time, we have only half of our
usual brainpower to devote to each.
-
A study involving 36 office workers found
that, on average, they spent only 11 minutes of a typical
workday focused on a given task before being interrupted,
and once they were interrupted, it took them nearly a
half-hour to return to the task, if they did so at all.
-
Another study of more than 11,000 office
workers revealed that interruptions caused more than two
hours of lost productivity per day – 25 percent
of the workday wasted.
Vince goes on to challenge the reader to create
a framework based on our values. Just what is important
to you? He says, “When we implement a values-based
time model in our lives, time becomes the tool we use to
organize our priorities and values rather than our duties
and location… It’s not a question of how much
you have to do or how fast you’re going. It’s
a question of whether or not the way you spend your time
is in line with your values and goals.”
If you are feeling trampled by the speed of
life, remember what Einstein said: “Problems can’t
be solved at the same level of consciousness that created
them.” Time is a tool. How can you use this valuable
tool more effectively?
All rights reserved.
No reproduction of any kind of this article is allowed without
written consent by author.
|
Download
PDF
