Intentionally or unintentionally we, as a society, have begun to equate the importance of someone with how busy they appear to be. What this has inadvertently led to is an atmosphere where people feel that they must constantly appear to be busy even when they are not doing something necessary, enjoyable, or productive. How many of us actually have to be reachable at any time of the day for any reason? Very few. In one interview Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, comments on the fact that he tries to focus on one thing at a time and is intentional about avoiding a constant stream of emails and calls. And yet there are many people who’s decisions matter significantly less who are glued to their phones and are willing to interrupt anything they are doing if they hear any email or come in. The problem with multitasking and believing that our importance goes up if we have many different things going on at once is that multitasking actually makes us less productive in the tasks that matter and decreases our happiness and satisfaction while performing a given task.
Whenever we get sick this seems to reveal itself the best. Something about feeling ill and uncomfortable motivates us to cut out the chaff from our schedules and focus on what actually matters. Most of our emails do not need a reply. We realize that many of the tasks we think keep the world going are actually just fillers. We realize that we actually have time to get 8 hours of sleep per night and that many of the tasks that we thought that we were absolutely essential for actually do not require us to the degree that we once thought. We realize that many other people are willing and more than able carry on without our attention.
There are very few things as valuable as your attention. Consider how much advertisers are willing to pay for your attention. In the United States in 2016 just short of 200 billion dollars was spent specifically on advertising. That amounts to hundreds of dollars per person each year. We should begin to value our attention and focus as much as advertisers value it. For definite increments of time make yourself unavailable to interruption. Focus on one and only one task. Realize that the more valuable your time is, the fewer interruptions you should have. Be productive not simply busy. Productivity is the end goal, not busyness.
JR.Stanley 