Singletasking
A year and a half ago, I relocated to Chicago for a new job. Regional role, with frequent travel involved.
One afternoon I landed at Midway airport, and upon reaching up in the storage bin, I felt that my work backpack was too heavy. Next day in the office, I used my lunch break to go over what was in it. A heavy laptop with tons of ports and a large screen, a heavy and very long charger, notepad and papers, multiple iPhone chargers and a power bank. I realized I had it all, but I was barely using stuff.
After I was done, I looked around in my new office. Two monitors, docking station, landline phone, speakers on my desk… lots of cookies tin cans, motivational posters… and more than 10 years of paper reports (some saved in floppy disks!) left behind by previous managers… including a folder with a message that read “How to make it in 1985".
Usually, when you are “relocatable”, you stay in role for 2 years. By the time you clean everything up and decorate your workspace, then you move on… but this time was different.
The “two monitors” was a “must have” and an expectation in the corporate world. You can do more at the same time (email and spreadsheets!) — Wrong!!! And I was ready to change that, for me and my team.
First things first, cleaned up the office. Shredded paper, gave away the cookie tin cans, kept a floppy disk as a souvenir, and got rid of the two monitors. What a relief!
Also, took care of the backpack problem. Returned my company issued laptop and got a 12 inch MacBook. Thin as paper, one port. I never really used all those ports and such a big screen! My charger is much lighter now too.
Kept a smaller size notepad, and all other papers, scanned and uploaded to Dropbox. Everything available when I need it.
To support my new “ways of working”, I got a copy of the book “Singletasking” by Devora Zack. It is a pretty easy to read book, that in my case, enabled me to be in this new “state of mind”.
Our brains are not programmed to multi task. I now do not let my calendar to overflow with appointments, just one call per slot. Email work every two hours, and no email on my first and last hour of the day.
