From meditation, I’ve learnt that focus is extremely powerful and it can easily jump between tasks and ideas. I can jump my focus on things that are far, near, and jump around extremely fast, and it’s not tiring at all.
This surprised me, because I thought that multi-tasking is really inefficient.
It’s better to focus on one thing a time until it gets done. But I’ve found that it’s not necessarily about jumping between different projects that is inefficient, but jumping between different types of work.
If I focus on something far away, then get up and do 10 press-ups, then think of something near, then do 2 pressups, that will be super tiring and hard work. It’s not about focusing on different things that is tiring and inefficient, but doing different types of work, and using the mind and body in multiple ways that is tiring and hard work.
Just like in sleep, there are three types, of sleep – Deep Sleep, Light Sleep, and REM, in work, there are basically three modes that need different types of work:
- Thinking
- Doing
- Working with others
One problem is that in each kind of work we do, we have to think about it, then we have to do, then we have to work with others. If we go through this cycle everyday, it’s really inefficient.
So it can be much more efficient to start the day off with thinking everything through, all the tasks for the day, all the meetings, and everything that needs doing, visualise it, and overcome the issues, and make a plan, writing it all down, then ready to start, and focus on either doing, or working with others. So only doing 3 types of work each day. Never more.
In this way, if you have thought everything through, the doing and working with others, becomes much more about just execution, and you don’t need to think strategically at all, because you’ve already thought it through and visualised it in your mind.
It feels much more effortless.
