Temporarily Stop Multitasking to Achieve Work-Life Balance

By David B. Bohl | March 22, 2007 | No Responses Yet

Sometimes we need a reminder to slow down and take a break from multitasking. Margaret Heffernan at FastCompany.com gave me that reminder. She has a 30 minute time frame on her calendar for every Monday, Wednesday & Friday for her thinking time. Allow yourself some breathing room and thinking time. Schedule it and don’t move it or let it be rescheduled!

Every once in a while, I need a reminder. Today, it came in the form of a great piece from Margaret Heffernan at FastCompany.com that I had read some time ago and resurrected today.

Margaret had placed a half-hour time block on her calendar every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday that was permanent- it couldn’t be moved or rescheduled. Ms. Heffernan would walk out her office door and take time for herself. She called it “my thinking time.”

What she found is that we’ve gotten so accustomed to multitasking that we have forgotten how to single task: to give our full attention and presence to just one thing - ourselves, a partner, a child, a family member, a friend, a colleague.I have found that spending a few moments each day in quiet reflection - looking around me and within myself - helps to put things back into perspective.

Try it sometime!

Margaret Heffernan’s full article can be viewed here.