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A few weeks ago I saw an Oprah show about "A wake-up call to slow down" -- especially for mothers. To make the point, they featured a women who, one morning, forgot that her one year was in the car when she drove to work one day in August, and found the child dead in the car several hours later.
A Zen Master (whatever that is) was on and said that multi-tasking is a fallacy. Everybody thinks it's so great to multi-task, this Zen Master said, but in reality there is no such thing. The brain can only focus on one thing at a time, period. So when it feels like you're multi-tasking, all you're really doing is quickly bouncing around from one "one thing at a time" to another "one thing at a time."
Well.
I thought about this a lot.
It occured to me that a lot of times, around here, I feel very frantic, and snap at the kids, because I feel like there are a hundred things going on here at once. I feel like I can never focus on anything, and I hate that. I always chalked it up to having three young kids and wanting to get a lot done, and to some extent that is probably true. But I began to wonder if I was contributing to the problem a lot myself.
I have a terrible habit of constantly getting on the computer, all in the name of multi-tasking. (And, admittedly, some amount of laziness.)
Mostly it stems from thinking, "Oh, okay, the kids don't need me right now, let me run really quickly and do something while I have the chance, and since someone will probably need me any second I can't get engrossed in anything important so let me quickly check my e-mail, at least I can do that."
This might be fine, and have some truth to it, if I did it once or twice a day for less than five minutes, but that's never what happens.
Anyway, today I vowed to do an experiment of sorts.
The Experiment:
After checking my messages briefly at breakfast time, I would not get on the computer again, for any reason, until after 3:00 pm (when Benjamin naps and the girls have "room time.")
I told myself that if I thought of something important I needed to post or write to someone about, I would jot a note about it on the refrigerator so I wouldn't forget. (This did not happen, by the way.)
The Results:
In a way it was difficult. There were about 6-7 times where I had to make a conscious effort not to get on the computer. The most noticeable time was went I went downstairs to transfer the laundry. The computer is in the room next to the laundry, and I always had the feeling of, "Well, while I'm down here, I'd better check if there's any messages."
Here's what I accomplished before 3:00 pm today, and I didn't even wake up until after 8:00 am:
* Baked two batches of cookies
* Made a carrot souffle to take on Thanksgiving trip
* Cleaned out and vacuumed mini-van
* Did two loads of laundry (although not all of it was completely put away)
* Helped the girls wrap gifts they made and package cookies to bring on Thanksgiving trip
* Read a chapter of Pippi Longstocking to the girls
* Made a few "business" phone calls
* Brought the trash out to the curb and got (and processed!) the mail
* Ironed about ten fuse bead ornaments the girls had made yesterday
What's even better than the list of things I accomplished is the fact that I had a really nice, calm day. I hardly ever felt like I was pulled in different directions. I didn't snap at the kids.
I am torn between feeling happy about this, and feeling ashamed. Even though I think this makes a very interesting post, I'm embarrassed to write about it.
What could be more obvious, really? Don't do two things at once. Focus on your kids when you're with your kids. Leave out non-essentials like cruising the Internet twenty times a day.
We're going out of town tomorrow, but I would like to continue this experiment, one day at a time, when we get back. I will write about it again next week. That will help me keep motivated.
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3 comments:
omigosh! What a relief to know I'm not the only person who is addicted to "popping in" to the internet/e-mail! I didn't use to be like this, but in the past couple of months it's become pretty bad. I blame it on all of my friends who write interesting blogs that I just can't tear myself away from, of course!;P But, seriously, you made be feel relieved, inspired, and guilty all at once. Yeah, I was just wondering yesterday how many minutes of my day are eaten up by timewasters like the computer. The sad thing is that I justify it to myself by saying I rarely ever watch tv (true). But, same diference, right? Maybe we can start our own litle support group. HSMWOG (homeschooling moms who obsessively google) anonymous. I'm tempted to actually do a google search to see if that exists. But I'll stop myself! must-resist-temptation!;P The only thing is, we'd probably want to make it an online group, and that would kind of defeat the purpose, right? :/
This is a great post. When I was homeschooling, I got to the point that I decided to check the omputer only twice during the day: once in the morning and once in the afternoon when the children were resting. Now that I'm teaching full-time, I find that I have almost no time for "personal" computer use during the week. But when you're at home with young ones, the internet provides a very tempting connection to one's friends and the world at large. I very much identify with this and applaud your efforts to limit yourself.
BTW, I love the list of all you accomplished the other day. It's amazing what we moms do without thinking about it, and reading (or writing) a list like this is very satisfying.
Don't be ashamed! You realized a problem and you're addressing it. The shame would be if you tried to rationalize away the problem, or justify it. I also feel the "computer compulsion" ! Thanks for sharing this and inspiring me to limit it. :)
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