Multitasking? Multi-distracting!

Today’s thought to ponder:

You think you’re multitasking.

You’re actually multi-distracting.

On a particular Sunday when sickness kept me home, I was sorting files while listening to church online. I was on my third sermon of the day from as many different preachers when the pastor said:

“Multitasking is a way of life in the 21^st Century. We do it all the time.”

That’s for sure, I thought.

“The kind of multitasking I’d like to invite us all to think about this morning is something I call emotional multitasking.”

Keep, recycle, recycle, shred…

“Giving mental energy to lots of different things at the same time which makes it hard to focus on anything.”

Shred, keep, keep, recycle…

“Jesus refused to multitask. Not physically, and not mentally. He would not be distracted from His goal.”

Recycle, keep, shred…

“I invite you, for the rest of this worship service, to focus only on Jesus.”

Busted.

Tackling Multitasking Distraction

There was a time that the most distracted I could be in church was limited to my own daydreams. Now I can cram three entire church services, played on 1.5x speed, in between the stacks of paper on my living room floor.

Technology has opened wide the door to opportunity, and with it many adversaries.

Did I get as much out of those three services as I would have if I spent a single hour in concentrated focus?

I don’t know. There are exceptions to the multi-tasking rule. For example, activities that use different parts of your brain or that are done on “auto-pilot” like walking a familiar path and listening to a podcast can be done with minimal impact to the two activities. But the more similar two activities are, or the more you have to think about them both, the more each task distracts you from the other.

If I managed to get 50% out of each task rather than 100% out of one task in the same amount of time, was it worth it? It was certainly more enjoyable to listen to sermons than to file in silence, so perhaps the answer is a bit situational and not necessarily one-size-fits-all. Ask me again in a few weeks when I'm looking for a file that ended up in the shred bag.

But overall and taken collectively, the point here is well taken. We think multitasking allows us to crank through multiple to-dos. Instead, we open ourselves up to multiple distractions. Rather than focus on the one thing God is calling us to do within that moment, we get pulled this way and that. The more distractions we allow, the more watered down our focus on the one thing we are supposed to be doing.

Focus on the one thing amidst all the distraction.

From my personal experience, there is also a mental fatigue aspect. I’ve commented before on the importance of taking a break. I’ve also noticed that even the “different enough” multitasks can start to take their toll. Too many days of my brain engaging elsewhere while my body is walking my neighborhood can be disorienting.

Sometimes my brain just needs to be wherever the rest of me is. The fact that we live in a world where that connection is increasingly uncommon should probably concern us more than it does.

Pastor Martha continued:

How much better our lives would be if we could do what Jesus did. Identify what is truly important in each moment and then stay in the moment, focusing on that one thing rather than the 50 other things that are swirling around in our heads…

We need to trust that if all of us in the body of Christ do our own individual parts, then the Spirit will make sure that others within the body of Christ will step up to work on the things that we have not discerned is God’s will for us at this time.

In this moment, what is God calling me to do?

Let me challenge you, friends, as I was challenged. Do not give in to multi-distracting. Ask God to help you focus on the one task before you.

Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? (Matthew 26:40, NLT)