Today in the category Checked by moms we are happy to share with you the good news in the Community blogs Moms. Natalia Ioffe, a member of our community and author of the blog "Worldly wisdom", wrote the book "Confessions of monotasker. How to achieve goals and be happy, taking one step at a time." Olga Bardina, the author of the blog "growing together", wrote her review about this book.
"When I started working on the book, I thought, first of all, about a woman. The very heroine of our time, which seeks to fully realize themselves in various spheres of life — whether career, parenting, caring for the home, marriage, Hobbies. A woman who by nature is considered prone to multitasking, and in fact, simply does not imagine any other alternative that allows her to keep up with everything.
The life of my heroine — however, as the life of each of us is extremely rigid, and the scope of these 24 hours a day. This is the time allotted to us to solve various problems, as well as to restore the forces necessary for normal, full-fledged functioning. During these 24 hours we have to sleep, eat, work, relax, communicate, have sex, play sports and self-development, create, cook, wash, play with children, do nothing, finally.
In this state of Affairs, multitasking (or multitasking) seems to be the only possible way to exist. It seems that only by combining business, we are able to somehow cover this endless list and at least partially fulfill our obligations.
That is why multitasking every day more firmly included in our lives and is perceived by many as an inevitability, as having no alternative solution to the problem of "success".
"Confessions of a monotasker. How to achieve goals and be happy, taking one step at a time»
However, protests against multitasking are heard here and there. The myth that multitasking is the only way to live and work productively is being debunked. The notorious multitasking, which has recently called for many experts in time management, has proved its failure and inefficiency... "from the book by Natalia Ioffe" Confessions of a monotasker."
Probably, like many other mothers, with the advent of children in my life, I became very attentive to my own life. What does my life consist of? What's really important to me? What do I want to pass on to my children? What do I want to learn myself? Reading the experience of other mothers, I see how often they also face questions about where the state of happiness comes from, how to maintain an internal state of peace, how to make their lives and the lives of children balanced and harmonious.
Therefore, having received an offer from Natalia Ioffe to study her book "Confessions of a monotasker", I immediately agreed, because I guessed what was behind it: Natasha's experience of finding answers to the same questions, her personal experience of building exactly the life that she would like to have.
Knowing Natasha from her author blog and participation in the Mom Blogs community, I was looking forward to a deep and beautifully told personal story. In this my hopes were justified, but most of all I was amazed by Natasha's frankness, her confessions about what UPS and downs awaited her on the way of forming a personal philosophy of life, how she tried and failed, and again tried…
Thanks to this frankness, the book has every right to be called "confession". Natasha did not stop her search until she found what best allows her to live her life without unnecessary stress, in contact with herself and loved ones, and at the same time collected and very effectively, with an understanding of what is really important to her and where to invest their strength.
Despite the fact that the book is based on the philosophy of life, the book is not abstract and is far from theorizing. All the principles and tips are very specific, so that each reader can try and try them for your life.
In addition to successful personal experience, the book contains many references to the authors and ideas that are gathering more and more followers, as people are tired of living in constant stress, trying to keep up with ten hares, to realize externally imposed goals and values, in a mad flow of information from all gadgets. For example, the ideas of the slow-life movement, which I sincerely sympathize with.
As I read, my thoughts kept returning to my own situation: how am I living? Where I'm in a hurry and nervous, and where-really live life? Am I trying to reconcile the incompatible? Do I become addicted to social media and mobile devices? And although the picture of my life seemed to me quite satisfactory by these criteria, but nevertheless there were pain points, the pain of which is generated by the attempt to be a multitasker (for example, to have a conversation with two children at once or cook dinner when the children have other plans for me. 🙂
I will not paint to describe the comic, those situations – I think is familiar to many. But instead I would like to pay more attention to what advantages I see in monotasking (or single-tasking) and why Natasha's views, which I met in her book, are close to me.
The advantages of monotasking
The very first bonus from monotasking for me personally: odnozadachnist soothing. 🙂
As Natasha writes, monotasking is akin to meditation: if we eat, wash dishes, write an article or communicate with a child – then we are completely in this process, completely in the present, immersed in the matter not only at the level of actions, but also thoughts.
No wonder many people use things that require full concentration, it is as relaxants: embroidery, drawing, even computer games and fishing – all this helps to relax due to the fact that at the moment there is only me and this case.
The second bonus, which is most talked about in the book: monotasking increases our efficiency.
Compare, for example, how effective you are when you write an article without distraction or when you simultaneously read texts, answer calls, look into the mail or keep one eye on the safety of children playing nearby. I do not know whether there are people who are only encouraged by the second option (quite possibly), but I know for sure that I can not even fully talk on the phone when there are children playing or just someone talking.
In the book, Natasha pays more attention to the issues of efficiency in work matters, but by and large there is little difference whether you decide business matters, whether you communicate with home or do creative work – in a good way, immersion and the absence of distractions is important everywhere.
The third bonus, which I would call: solving one problem at a time gives much more satisfaction than trying to combine many things at once. Natasha very appetizing describes it on the example of eating.
Agree that you can eat in different ways: you can swallow "only-what" drinking "only-what", looking at email on your phone or examines a television program, but you can prosmakovat every bite, to feel all of his properties, to feel the response of the body to each dish and... (most importantly) when to stop.
In addition to the example of nutrition, I remembered the famous book by Mihai Csikszentmihalyi "Flow: the psychology of optimal experience", in which he writes about a special state that captures us with his head when fully immersed in the case and love for this case. It is the experience of such States that gives a person happiness (not to mention the effectiveness-finding creative solutions, high care, etc.).
It turns out that we are happy just when we are completely immersed in the present moment and the work being done. And for such a dive you need to stop chasing immediately after a huge number of hares. Or, to put it another way: each hare – its time. 🙂
Well, I will not reveal all the secrets described in the book " Confessions of monotasker. How to achieve goals and be happy, taking one step at a time." I can only say that the book is easy to read, and Natasha's style is very similar to a pleasant personal conversation. And what is important for me, in the book there is absolutely no fanaticism and attempts to impose something: there is an experience, there is an invitation to try. Everything else is your freedom to evaluate, apply, adapt for yourself or build your own philosophy of life.