Singletask

This year my son graduated third grade and will begin the next school year ready to focus on his assignments and of course the playground.  I sat one evening in my favorite family room chair and thought as I usually do when sitting quietly, about all the advice passed to me from school and college scholars, such as, "Dare to be wrong" or, "Be like Curious George." I thought deeply as I sat on, what advice I would offer to a student body sitting and listening to me.  I must admit that the opportunity to address such a mass of wonderfully open-minded youth would certainly be an opportunity I would not pass up.  I continued to ponder the thought and drifted thinking of my approach to life and how I take advantage of the fact that regardless of my perceived skills I can only be wholly focused on one thing. I think this type of focus is nice, isn't it?

In the past, today and in the future, you will have more and more claims made on your attention, and I am sure you will be asked to multitask. We all have unquestioning faith in this wonderful skill, multitasking, and we are often told that we need to multitask to succeed in the workplace. But I want to counter that the world does not need more multitaskers. We need more singletaskers, people who think deeply and slowly about one thing. The world needs, I believe, people who can, like Einstein, devote three-and-a-half years to a single problem, such as why light behaves like both a particle and a wave. So my advice to you today is, "Dare to singletask."

Now I know that "Dare to singletask" isn't very catchy. Multitasking sounds much cooler. Who wants to singletask? According to Microsoft Word, it's not even a word. (Multitask is, by the way.) I considered using the word "monotask," which at least has the benefit of beginning with an "m," like its counterpart "multitask." But I like "singletask" because it conjures "single-mindedness." Besides, monotask sounds like something you do when you have mononucleosis, or runs the risk of sounding monotonous. Singletask sounds like you are doing it on purpose.

And purpose is the purpose. Blaise Pascal, the famous scientist said, "All of man's trouble stems from his inability to sit quietly in a room alone." I am asking you to do just that. Sit in a room alone. Since most of you have roommates or family whom you cannot eject, find any place that will do. A library corner or a quiet location outdoors. Just be alone with your thoughts. Do one thing deeply and well. Struggle with a very difficult book for months. Stare at a flower. Think about the purpose of life.

Beginning to sound a bit holistic here, but I believe you know what I mean.

This is not an anti-technology rant. I love technology as much as the next person. I have an iPhone and several other gadgets. I don't Twitter, but I think I know what it means. If my wife allows me, I might even get an iPad. Rather, I am just calling for more horsepower where we need it - deep, analytical thinking about one important topic. The inscription at the entrance of the Oracle at Delphi in Greece was "Know thyself." Greeks visited Delphi to find answers, but the answer they received was to look within.

Besides, you may not be as good at multitasking as you believe. Research by Clifford Nass at Stanford University shows that chronic multitaskers who think they are good at doing many things at the same time actually perform poorly at multitasking. He says that most of what we know about psychology suggests that the brain is not very good at multitasking, yet we are called to do it more and more.

So when your present or future supervisor or professor or spouse asks you to do two or three things by next Wednesday, do them well by next Tuesday. Do not say, "Excuse me, but palmerpinckney.blogspot.com advised me not to multitask." Instead, I am warning against all of the distractions we invite into our lives to the exclusion of deep thinking. I recently read that during one of his late sermons, the Hindu god Buddha simply held up a flower in silence. That was the entire sermon. The name Buddha means "Awakened." I am asking you to be awake, to sit under a tree as Buddha did for 49 days, to singletask. I think the gifts of singletasking will be many, not least of all the gift of yourself.

Thanks for reading, thanks for visiting.

Copyright © 2010 Palmer Pinckney II