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Her.meneutics is edited by associate editor Katelyn Beaty and online editor Sarah Pulliam Bailey.

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July 16, 2010

Multitasking: Bad for the Soul

Sure, I was getting a lot done as a mother of four. But I was having a hard time obeying God.

Jennifer Grant

My husband and I had been married for eight years when I gave birth to our first child. Two years later, his brother was born. Eighteen months later, their sister. And less than two years after that, we started the adoption process and soon brought home a daughter.

“You’re busy,” people would remark, eyeing me with my children. I never knew whether the comment was tinged with pity or admiration.

jog.jpg

Yes, I was busy. But, more significantly, I was evolving into a different person. No longer the dreamy, walk-taking, tea-drinking, poem-writing person who baked her own bread, I had become a woman barreling down the aisles at the grocery store, baby in sling, toddlers fastened into cart. After years of toting children on my hip, my forearms had begun to resemble Popeye the Sailor's.

And I wasn’t just busy with the kids. Like many “at-home” mothers, I had part-time work and volunteer responsibilities at church and my children’s schools. Meanwhile, I was making Herculean efforts to stay close to my husband and friends. I found myself setting up interviews for a newspaper story, ordering curriculum, and making reminder calls from my cell phone in the grocery store — while, of course, keeping the kids in sight, buying food for the week, and stopping to compare the prices of varieties of pears.

In short, I learned to multitask.

In recent years, of course, we’ve learned that it is actually impossible to multitask. Study after study after study chide us for believing we can make our brains do more than one thing at a time. “A core limitation [of the human brain] is an inability to concentrate on two things at once,” says René Marois, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University. When we are multitasking, we are actually just switching from one task to another at astonishing speed. It’s unproductive, distracting, and dangerous to multitask, we are told.

But over the years, I became something of a multitasking expert. And I began to suffer from it. I answered e-mail from my phone while waiting for a freight train to pass. Before picking the kids up from school, I’d troll around the neighborhood, choosing a parking space based on whether I could find a Wi-Fi signal in order to get an additional few minutes of work done.

I felt, to use the old expression, that I was drinking from a fire hose. Equally compelled to answer unimportant messages (“Thanks for letting us use your car-top carrier. We left it on your front porch”) as more critical ones (“Can you remind me where I’m supposed to be for the photo shoot this afternoon?”), I was losing perspective. I was also finding it hard to hear God, what with all the text and e-mail alerts on my phone, the call waiting signal, and my kids’ voices creating a low roar.

Then, about a year and a half ago, I called an Episcopal monk who lives in Boston, hoping to get a quote for a story I was writing. The day had begun at breakneck speed. Unfinished homework, early morning orchestra rehearsal, a fresh batch of e-mails that demanded responses, two loads of laundry, and on and on.

On first hearing the monk's voice, I almost rolled my eyes — he sounded comically serene. But after a few minutes, I felt myself relax a little.

He told me that his work, as a monk, was to listen to God. Simply that. He’d taken a vow, he said.

“A vow to listen?”

“A vow of obedience.”

Oh, I thought, you can’t obey until you hear what you’re supposed to do. Duh.

“To obey is to listen,” he said, as if he were responding to my thoughts. He said that the word’s etymology reveals that “obedience” is less about complying with rules and more about listening. Deep listening.

listen.jpg

The Hebrew word is shama: “to hear, to listen.” Samuel uses the word, declaring that “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22).

In Greek the word is hupakouo, or “to listen under.”

The Latin for obedience is oboedire: “to hear or listen towards.”

In Old English, it’s herknen.

So, he said, to obey God is to listen deeply to him — or hearken his voice.

“The monastic life is a culture of silence,” he said. “It’s not that there’s nothing to be said, it’s that there is so much to be heard.” He said that the practice of silence stands in strong opposition to a culture that is “obsessed with multitasking.”

Ooh.

“Multitasking has been normalized. It is costly to the soul,” he said.

Ouch.

I asked him what advice he gives to people whose calling doesn’t lead them into the sanctuary of a monastery. “Do one thing at a time. As much as possible, do only one thing.”

Doing one thing at a time is a terribly, wonderfully, old-fashioned idea. Since talking to him, I’ve been trying to break my multitasking habit, bit by bit. Often when I’m alone in the car, I just drive. I don’t check e-mail at red lights. I don’t listen to the radio. I just sit still. And the more I practice the lost art of doing one thing at a time, the more I hear the voice of God. Offering peace and clarity. Nudging me to interact with a person. Infusing me with an idea. Reminding me of his presence.

Weaning myself from rabid multitasking is a long process. But I’m plugging away at it — not ultimately because I know it’s bad for productivity, causes car accidents, or makes me feel stress, though all these things might be true. I do it to draw closer to the one who is quietly with me, waiting to speak to me in a moment of silence.

Be still.

Be still.

Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10).

Now there’s one thing to do.

Jennifer Grant is a journalist, freelance writer, and mother of four who writes a column and feature stories for the Chicago Tribune. She has written for Her.meneutics about Lady Gaga. Find her online at JennifercGrant.com.

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Posted by Katelyn Beaty on July 16, 2010 10:00 AM

Comments

Thank you! I am terrible at multitasking and try to avoid it, but have struggled with guilt because our culture definitely tells us (especially women w/ children) that multitasking is necessary to get everything done that must be done. I once read a women's magazine article in which an expert suggested that we use our time in doctors' waiting rooms to make grocery lists, return phone calls (I'm sure the other people waiting appreciate that), or edit something for work. I realized I love waiting room time, along with driving, precisely because they are two of the few times that I allow myself to just be, without feeling I should be doing something else more important. Now the challenge is to bring that satisfaction with just being engaged in one activity to the rest of my day--to cook when I'm cooking, to eat when I'm eating, to write when I'm writing, to talk to my kids when they are talking to me.

One of my favorite hymns has this line:

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Til all our strivings cease,
Take from our lives the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess,
The beauty of thy peace.

Posted By: Ellen | July 16, 2010 10:52 AM

Fabulous article!

I was just thinking about this very thing today. We Americans always need to be doing something, and usually more than one thing. We feel guilty if we don't have activities, stacked one on top of the other, and we must be "productive."

Even in our lazy moments, we are watching TV, reading, talking, texting, listening to music or surfing the web!

How can we possibly hear God in all of this busyness and cocophany?

Thanks, Jennifer, for the reminder. Easier said than done, I know, but it's something to at least aim for!

Posted By: Suzy | July 16, 2010 3:39 PM

I so need this. I have recently begun to notice I am horrible at multi-tasking. And maybe, it is just how it is supposed to be. I'm a teacher and I've told me kids, 'Your mind can only listen to 1 thing at a time, can be occupied w/ 1 thing at a time.' So true. I should take my own advice!

Posted By: k80@onegirlsjourney | July 16, 2010 4:04 PM

How did I manage to miss the memo about multitasking being a myth?

So....maybe my "efficiency" is pridefulness in disguise?

This is something for me to ponder.

Ellen: As you feel about waiting rooms, I feel about lines (at the post office, bank, etc.). Of course now that we transact so much business on line, I have less time IN line.

Hmm.

Posted By: Sheila | July 16, 2010 4:30 PM

While I don't have children, I, too, fall into the habit of multitasking. Sherry Turkle, a professor at MIT, wrote about being tethered, i.e. overly connected to our cell phones, emails, Internet, iPods, etc. I also read about mothers doing "remote parenting" with their mobile phones. Not only do we become more frazzled, we are also unable to concentrate on the task at hand. There is opportunity cost in everything we do. Like Jennifer, I had an encounter with a Benedictine monk recently. In our conversation, he found out I don't own a cell phone and said, "I'm glad you're not 'wired.'" I've come to appreciate my not-so-tethered life; one can hear so much in the silence.

Posted By: Lucy | July 17, 2010 12:18 AM

Wow, this makes a lot of sense and worth giving a try. I have somehow convinced myself that the only way to keep things together is to multi-task. I don't yet have kids but have a husband and pets. Because of the demand at work to do task after task at an extremly rapid pace, I find it now second nature when I arrive at home to sometimes feel afraid that I will miss something important like feeding my animals,or paying a bill I should pay. My life is almost consumed with the anxiety of feeling that because my work life is so extremely fast paced that I have used all my brain energy for the day and that as my body winds down I will have forgotten very important things. It's to the point I have to put reminders on my cell phone I feel even to remind myself of basic things, brush my teeth, eat, sleep, lol. But I know that with all the rush and anxiety of life I suffer from not listening to God like I should, giving him more focus like I need to. And for that reason alone, with God's help, I will not give up on learning this "one thing at a time" concept because God is worth it and without him nothing is worth anything. Thanks for this article dear sister, and blessings to all family in the Lord!

Posted By: Jessica | July 17, 2010 2:45 AM

Since I have had children, one of the things I try to do every day is give each one of them half an hour of my undivided attention. We do whatever that child wants to do (at home). I don't answer the phone, check my email, or do other chores. Just me and him/her for 30 minutes. It involves listening and responding to them, deeply listening to them so that they know that I hear who they each are as a person.

I just realized that what I really need to do is start practicing this same thing with God. Yikes.

It's so difficult to live in the present, but I just want to BE present for every moment. I don't want to wake up in 50 years and realize that my life was a blur. I want to soak it in.

Posted By: Robyn | July 19, 2010 11:04 AM

Really great blog post, thank you. Back in college I used to practice fasting, but not just from food. I would fast from music in the car or during studying for a day every week. I was constantly driving around as a commuter student so this was a big deal to me. I can tell you I prayed for anyone and everyone and saw answers to prayer. God showed me some specific things during those times, things that might seem silly or insignificant to others, but for me, they were miracles. Every so often I try to get back to that routine, but I admit it's not as often as it should be.

I think as women, we should give ourselves permission to sit and do nothing, if even for 10 minutes, and reflect on the blessings God has given us and listen. This is not idle time, it's a spiritual discipline. Don't feel guilty, moms!

Posted By: Steph | July 20, 2010 1:04 PM

I am sharing this post with as many people as I can. Multitasking is one of the worst ailments of our society. It dries up our energy, our emotions, and our ability to discern and to place things in perspective. Multitasking treats all tasks as of equal importance and creates a false urgency about even the most meaningless matters. First Thessalonians 4:11-12 tells us to make it our goal to live a quiet life so that those who don't know Christ will respect the way we live. How bright the contrast between a Christian living simply and quietly, in peace and contentment to the harsh, hurried and harried pace of the world!

Posted By: Shellie Foltz | July 23, 2010 9:01 PM

I so needed this article. I too am the mother of four girls,I also attend school full-time on line, work and try and squeeze my husband in the mix on most days. Often times I feel as though I am not doing enough to move my life to the next level. I find myself feeling left out of my life as a woman before children and husband, but I guess it all boils down to being content in the life I have chosen and understanding that life comes with many levels and enjoying each level is the key to enjoying, loving and accepting the woman in the mirror, ME!

Sharlene H. McClendon

Posted By: Sharlene H. McClendon | July 26, 2010 10:45 AM

When we place the Lord first, He helps us with our priorities. Isn't multitasking just another way that we dismiss God and act as though we can do it all without Him.
I have noticed that when we multitask most often is when others will see us doing it. It really does not help us accomplish more; it satisfies the pride that says look at me, I can do it all and better than you. Where is the humility in that?

Posted By: Jolie | July 26, 2010 2:40 PM

I think it's a nice idea and I see your point, but HOW do you single-task and still get it done? I know parents who do it, but they're called "dads" and when you come home, they may have fed the kids and changed diapers, but the laundry isn't done, the house isn't clean, and the meal isn't cooked! ;)

Posted By: Amanda | July 28, 2010 10:32 AM

I just told my mom and sister today that I am praying but feel I am not getting an answer about something I need to make an important decision on. Maybe it was meant to be that I read this article because maybe I am not listening while I am always so busy!

Posted By: Angela | February 16, 2011 11:47 AM

Having arrived at this point in my life, I do not want to be successful at anything. As much as I miss the affirmation and excitement of the workplace, as much as I struggle with wanting to have close to picture-perfect children, as much as I fault myself for not exercising enough, not being effective enough, and on and on and on...I tell myself at this point, if not now, when will I stop long enough for God to have my full attention. If I am not totally devoted to God, I am not totally anything or anyone.

I used to ask the question, "Who makes the rules?" Now it doesn't matter because the choice for me should be "Live God's way" and the only way to find that way is to be with and in God consciously and all the time.

Be present.

Posted By: Maria | February 16, 2011 12:08 PM

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