They say multitasking is a myth. Yet here’s Charlie: keeping a ball alive, finalizing her vision board, and actively ignoring pointless emails. Prioritization;
thatBB dictionary
prioritization
(noun)
Deciding what gets your brain, what gets your autopilot, and what gets ignored on purpose. The emails know which one they are.
Is multitasking a myth? Mostly, yes
Your brain doesn’t run two thinking jobs at once. It switches between them, and every switch costs you a little focus. That’s why answering emails in a meeting makes you worse at both. The loophole is anything you’ve done so many times it runs itself: walking, chewing, bouncing a paddle ball. Charlie isn’t multitasking. She’s doing one real job, letting muscle memory keep the ball alive, and giving the emails absolutely nothing. That’s not a myth. That’s a strategy.
What would a stoic do?
For the greatest part of what we say and do being unnecessary, if a man takes this away, he will have more leisure and less uneasiness.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.24 (trans. George Long)
Marcus had a war, a plague and an empire on his desk, and his advice still wasn’t to do more at once. It was to cut what doesn’t matter, so what’s left gets all of you. Most of your inbox doesn’t matter. Act accordingly.
Try this: three moves for a chaotic day
- Pick the one job that gets your brain. Everything else is autopilot or the ignore pile. Nothing gets to be both.
- Rep the boring stuff until it runs itself. Once a task is muscle memory, it stops stealing focus. That’s the paddle ball.
- Ignore on purpose. Some emails deserve a reply today. Some deserve never. Decide once, then stop thinking about them.
Let’s do what’s essential and let the rest bounce; meow meow, kev
