Tuesday, April 17, 2012

One Task At a Time


I don't think I have Attention Deficit Disorder.



But just like in "Up", I see the proverbial squirrel and away my mind goes.

The way it's going these days in work land, I'm trained to do seven things at once. Oftentimes IMPOSSIBLE things.

But I always believe I can do them anyway.

Do this, but watch that, and keep an eye out for this, but answer that email, and wait, someone pinged, and IT needs this right now, and this customer is threatening to leave, and can you look at this for me?

It's no wonder, with this sort of thing going on every day at work, that it has carried over to life outside the office as well. I walk into a room, and have a mission, a task to complete. Ten minutes later I'm in a different room because something shiny that I saw in the corner of the first room reminded me that this other thing needs to be done.
I need to work like Cinderella I suppose. One task at a time.



But OH the distractions!



I don't have the t.v. on that often these days. But I can press my nose against a book for hours on end. If I receive a text message I feel compelled to answer quickly. If the phone rings and I know who is calling, I answer, whether I'm busy or not.

I probably should learn the art of saying no, or letting voicemail answer for me once in a while. My mom often says, "I sit down at the computer and before I know it half of my day is gone!". Yet another distraction, a big one mind you, with all of the things in cyberspace available at our finger tips. Blogs and Twitter and Facebook and todays headlines and recipes and and..... you know how it goes.

So here is to focusing on the task at hand.

May the force be with you (and me). Because I'm going to need help!

See you soon,
Tiffany

“Hutchison's Law:
Any occurrence requiring undivided attention will be accompanied by a compelling distraction.” --
Hutch Robert Bloch

3 comments:

Serenity said...

The fact that I am so behind on blogs illustrates your point. SO many things want our attention! I would be terrible at your job. It is my mantra lately NOT to multitask. At the end of several days there are definitely things I wish I had done more, but I try to just focus on whether I'm happy with what I'm doing NOW. Sigh. It's a journey, that's for sure. :)

Anonymous said...

I know exactly what you mean. It's because of this practicing one task at a time that my poor blog has been so neglected! =)

Serenity said...

I have the same problem. :)