Being Present (AKA Multi-Tasking is a Myth)

Photo by Sabine Schulte on Unsplash

The ability to be present is, it seems to me, a talent. It’s a hard skill to develop and hone. 

I don’t know if that’s the case for you, but it’s certainly been the case for me, something I’ve personally struggled with over the years.

Part of this is a tendency to take on multiple priorities. Part of this is a tendency to obsess over a situation or a task, to let it absorb me entirely. 

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think there’s a necessity to it, a value that it delivers in terms of focus and quality and excellence. I’ve felt this way about my business which I’ve worked to build over the last decade and a half. If you sign up to be an entrepreneur, or to go after a defined mission, you’re signing up for this exact type of obsession. (I don’t believe it’s optional.)

But there’s a potential downside here as well. When it invades your headspace to the exclusion of all else, at the wrong place and time, then it becomes a material problem. You find you can’t let it out of your thoughts, there is no respite, no such thing as time off. And that is a problem. Like that scene in Close Encounters of The Third Kind, when Richard Dreyfuss is so obsessed with the mountain-like shape that is Devil’s Tower, that he begins making models of it, including shaping it out of mashed potatoes over dinner with his family, much to their discomfort.

OK, I never quite did that, but I will admit to being preoccupied, quiet, distant, mentally away from my family, when I should have very much been with them, in the moment. It was a recurring complaint, and rightfully so. I wasn’t there even when I was physically here. 

I think I’m much better at it now - not perfect, but better. Better at being more present. Better at letting go of those things that I shouldn’t focus on in the moment. Better - at least more conscious - of reducing the noises in my head.

All of this has to do with conscious effort - a concerted effort that we must choose to make to be in the moment. We must decide to be calm, to quiet the voices that don’t matter at that moment, to let the other things go. All very zen-like.

But it also begins with an acceptance of the fact that the idea of ‘multi-tasking’ is, frankly, a myth. Say whatever you want, but there’s no such thing. Even computers can’t multi-task, they just do multiple things very, very fast, to give the appearance of multi-tasking. 

Humans aren’t wired that way. We can’t do two things at the same time, and especially in terms of our headspace, we can’t be in two places at the same time, either. We can only be here or there, so we have to make a choice. Where do we want to be? 

(This is, incidentally, why we talk about compartmentalizing work, separating tasks to focus on, switching off from specific activities at specific times. It’s not just helpful, it’s necessary. Otherwise, we lose out. We miss out.)

Again, I’m not perfect here. My wife will tell you that. But I am trying harder now. Consciously.

I’m pretty sure it’s not just me, though. I think many of us have this same struggle. Because, as I said, the ability to be present is a hard skill to develop and hone. 

But it’s an essential one.