Working on One Thing at a Time

It begins before I lift my head from the pillow each morning.

There are so many things that need to be done. There are the personal things, like shaving and taking a shower. There is breakfast, which leads inevitably to speculating about lunch. There are work things; I need to call her, email them, and meet with him. Every once in a while, I need to think my way through something, or even write a little bit.

We live in a time when it is becoming more and more difficult to work on one thing at a time.

We hold ourselves responsible to do so many different things, and do them all well. We also surround ourselves with enticing distractions. “I can work on that if I do it during the football game. Maybe at halftime.”

We want to do it all. Not only do we want to work on everything, we want to do it now without making any mistakes.

In the process, we sacrifice the quality of experience to gain quantity. We push ourselves to do more, never knowing the joy of paying attention and learning to work on things as well as we can. We do not really want to learn, we just want to do more.

When I work on what I love to do, everything else fades out of my sight. I am not distracted, but drawn into what I am doing. I do not regret missing all the other things I could be doing.

There is a sense of rhythm and worship that feeds my soul in working on one thing at a time. Why would I want to be doing anything else?

What is the thing you will do today without being distracted?

What do you love to do? What gives you joy?

[Image by The Wandering Angel]