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Instead of Multi-Tasking, Try Doing Just One Thing At A Time

To hell with multi-tasking. Doing multiple things at once means your energy is scattered and your mind is pulled in different directions and in a state of tension, rather than flow.

Here’s a crazy idea: Do just one thing at a time. Fully focus on that one thing, and then calmly move on to the next. In “Slowing Down to the Speed of Life,” a brilliant little book by Richard Carlson and Joseph Bailey published way back in 1997, the authors write of how paying attention to just what you’re doing at any given moment can create an experience of time slowing down. If you can do that, they suggest, you’ll not only feel less stress; you”ll also actually get more done.

This inner calm is much more productive than rushing around like your hair’s on fire. “To our surprise,” the authors write, “as the two of us have learned to live more in the moment,…we have found that although we have the experience or feeling of time slowing down, the truth is that at the end of the day we have accomplished more than we used to when we felt rushed and frantic

Elizabeth Cogswell Baskin is the President and CEO of Tribe, an internal branding company working with national and global brands. She's also the author of several books.