One Thing at a Time

As I sat in on a class at Harvard today, I was absolutely amazed at the sea of laptops before me. Chatty emails and updating friend websites were the least of what people spent their time in class doing. Fascinated by the lecture, I was continually distracted by students pointing out the goings-ons of other laptops across the room, some of which were truly amazing, but not appropriate to mention here...

Maybe they are all really good at multi-tasking. I'm not, and as my client last week said, "Nobody is." But this is the way of nowadays. Harvard probably wouldn't be competitive if they didn't have internet access in the lecture halls. And frankly, if I were a student there, I'd probably end up doing the same thing, just because it's there.

If we allow distractions in our paths, they will distract us. The effort to avoid them will allow us enjoyment of our present and subsequent activities, at least two-fold. But! Effort is difficult and underrated. One more thing. This constant multi-tasking is infused in our culture of "never enough." Friends, text messages, activities, belongings, appointments...never enough, everything becomes replaceable and disposable, and things as simple as reading a book or sitting in a chair with no electronic equipment nearby are shown pictured with subtitles like "Serenity," or, "Come to Waikiki..."

Let's try to do one (small) thing until it's done and see how it goes. (And if we forget and get distracted, we can always try again).