Zen Focus

I've been working on unitasking since my post last week, but it's a lot harder than I expected. The monkey mind jumps around from topic to topic. Turning off the TV helps for a while, until I remember I haven't listened to the evening news, etc. I turn on the 24-hour news channel, but after the half-hour go-round, I find myself switching to entertainment channels. Before long I'm back at trying to get work done while keeping an eye on the TV program. I'm back at square one.

I've been following the Zen Habits blog I mentioned in the Unitasking post. I especially liked a recent post on Focus. Here's a trenchant excerpt:

Your focus determines your reality.

It’s something we don’t think about much of the time, but give it some consideration now:

If you wake up in the morning and think about the miserable things you need to do later in the day, you’ll have a miserable day. If you wake up and focus instead on what a wonderful gift your life is, you’ll have a great day.

If we let our attention jump from one thing to another, we will have a busy, fractured and probably unproductive day. If we focus entirely on one job, we may lose ourselves in that job, and it will not only be the most productive thing we do all day, but it’ll be very enjoyable.

The essay discusses four ways to focus:

• "Focus on a goal. ... Maintain your focus on your goal, and you’ve won half the battle in achieving it."
• "Focus on now. ... [F]ocusing on the present can do a lot for you. It helps reduce stress, it helps you enjoy life to the fullest, and it can increase your effectiveness."
• "Focus on the task at hand. ... People find greatest enjoyment not when they’re passively mindless, but when they’re absorbed in a mindful challenge."
• "Focus on the positive. ... [L]earn to see the positive in just about any situation. This results in happiness, in my experience, as you don’t focus on the bad parts of your life, but on the good things."

I'm tempted to reproduce more of it here--Leo Babauta, the Zen Habits blogger, has released all his content from copyright, and freely grants permission to others to reproduce it, although he asks to be given credit. (Speaking from my lawyer side, I'm astounded...but what a very Zen thing to do, eh?) I won't copy it here, however, but rather recommend you go to the Zen Habits website and read it. The guy has a good prose style and the site is well-designed, with lots of good content.

FOCUS. Yep, that's what I need to do.

Unitasking

Picture from The Atlantic Monthly
Multitasking. This is a word coined originally to describe the way computers operate, but it soon spread to human behavior. (Merriam-Webster dates its first use as 1966.)

I've been hearing about, reading about, and seeing multitasking for years now. I've been doing it myself for a long time. In this technologically-driven age, I can do a bunch of things at once. I can read the newspaper, watch TV, answer e-mail, talk on the phone, file my nails, and give myself a pedicure while fending off a cat trying to nap on my computer keyboard. When my daughter was a tot, I did all those things plus try to entertain her so I could get some work done.

But just because I can do it, must I do it?

I've been longing more and more for a return to yesteryear. A return to the days when I did one, or at most two, things at a time. Maybe the reason my memory's failing and I can't concentrate isn't so much the hormone swings of menopause, or the natural aging process. Maybe I'm just trying to do too much. Maybe I need to concentrate on one thing at a time. I've lost the feeling of satisfaction I used to get from completing a task, because so often I feel that I could have done it better. Maybe I'm not performing as well because I'm doing too many things at once.

This conclusion, which I've reached more or less on my own, is supported by research.

In Is Multitasking More Efficient?, the American Psychological Association notes that "multitasking may seem more efficient on the surface, but may actually take more time in the end....[T]his insight into executive control may help people choose strategies that maximize their efficiency when multitasking. The insight may also weigh against multitasking." Those conclusions are from a study reported in "Executive Control of Cognitive Processes in Task Switching," Joshua S. Rubinstein, U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, Atlantic City, N.J.; David E. Meyer and Jeffrey E. Evans, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., Journal of Experimental Psychology - Human Perception and Performance, Vol 27. No.4.

I downloaded the original article from the APA website, but discovered it was easier to read about it in "Study: Multitasking is counterproductive" on CNN .com, which summarized the findings and also had good comments from the authors.

In "The Autumn of the Multitaskers," the Atlantic Monthly (via writer Walter Kirn) posits the theory that multitasking isn't efficient and it's going to go away. (Interesting, but not likely.)

Time magazine reports in "The Multitasking Generation," "Decades of research (not to mention common sense) indicate that the quality of one's output and depth of thought deteriorate as one attends to ever more tasks. Some are concerned about the disappearance of mental downtime to relax and reflect." That article also explains that changes in the prefontal cortex make it harder from the very young and for those over, um, a certain age to multitask. (I haven't reached that certain age yet, but it's only a few years away. Apparently my prefrontal cortex has already changed.) The article also says our brains need rest and recovery time to consolidate thoughts and memories. Thus, "Teenagers who fill every quiet moment with a phone call or some kind of e-stimulation may not be getting that needed reprieve. Habitual multitasking may condition their brain to an overexcited state, making it difficult to focus even when they want to."

For the last week or so, I've been trying unitasking--trying to do one thing at a time. I don't turn on the TV while I'm on the computer. I read the newspaper without watching TV, or without sitting at the keyboard to check e-mail. When I get a phone call, I put down my book, or I put the TV on mute, and focus on the call. At the office, when I start a task, I'm trying to complete it before I switch to something else.

You know what? It's hard. I'm addicted to doing several things at once. I'm addicted to trying to "save time" by keeping all those balls in the air. And, to be realistic, I have to acknowledge that there are many areas in life--our jobs, for example--where we don't have a choice. We have to multitask sometimes.

I'm trying to have a Zen attitude about it. I even found a Zen website that gives advice on how NOT to multitask.

Unitasking: a goal to achieve. I'm working on it.

To do two things at once is to do neither.
—Publilius Syrus, Roman slave, first century B.C.

2007 Bram Stoker Award Nominees

The Horror Writers Association has announced the nominees for the 2007 Bram Stoker Awards:

Superior Achievement in a NOVEL

• THE GUARDENER'S TALE by Bruce Boston (Sam's Dot)
• HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
• THE MISSING by Sarah Langan (Harper)
• THE WITCH'S TRINITY by Erika Mailman (Crown)
• THE TERROR by Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)

Superior Achievement in a FIRST NOVEL

• I WILL RISE by Michael Louis Calvillo (Lachesis Publishing)
• HEART-SHAPED BOX by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
• THE MEMORY TREE by John R. Little (Nocturne Press)
• THE HOLLOWER by Mary SanGiovanni (Leisure Books)

Superior Achievement in LONG FICTION

• AFTERWARD, THERE WILL BE A HALLWAY by Gary Braunbeck (Five Strokes to Midnight)
• ALMOST THE LAST STORY BY ALMOST THE LAST MAN by Scott Edelman (Postscripts)
• GENERAL SLOCUM'S GOLD by Nicholas Kaufmann (Burning Effigy Press)
• THE TENTH MUSE by William Browning Spencer (Subterranean #6)
• AN APIARY OF WHITE BEES by Lee Thomas (Inferno)

Superior Achievement in SHORT FICTION

• THE DEATH WAGON ROLLS ON BY by C. Dean Andersson (Cemetery Dance #57)
• LETTING GO by John Everson (Needles and Sins)
• THE TEACHER by Paul G. Tremblay (Chizine)
• THERE'S NO LIGHT BETWEEN FLOORS by Paul G. Tremblay (Clarkesworld)
• CLOSET DREAMS by Lisa Tuttle (Postscripts #10)
• THE GENTLE BRUSH OF WINGS by David Niall Wilson (Defining Moments)

Superior Achievement in an ANTHOLOGY

• FIVE STROKES TO MIDNIGHT edited by Gary Braunbeck and Hank Schwaeble (Haunted Pelican Press)
• INFERNO edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)
• DARK DELICACIES 2: FEAR edited by Del Howison & Jeff Gelb (Carroll & Graf/Avalon)
• MIDNIGHT PREMIERE edited by Tom Piccirilli (Cemetery Dance Publications)
• AT EASE WITH THE DEAD edited by Barbara & Christopher Roden (Ash-Tree Press)

Superior Achievement in a COLLECTION

• PROVERBS FOR MONSTERS by Michael A. Arnzen (Dark Regions Press)
• THE IMAGO SEQUENCE by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
• OLD DEVIL MOON by Christopher Fowler (Serpent's Tail)
• 5 STORIES by Peter Straub (Borderlands)
• DEFINING MOMENTS by David Niall Wilson (Sarob Press)

Superior Achievement in NONFICTION

• ENCYCLOPEDIA HORRIFICA by Joshue Gee (Scholastic)
  
• THE PORTABLE OBITUARY: HOW THE FAMOUS, RICH & POWERFUL REALLY DIED by Michael Largo (Harper)
  
• THE CRYPTOPEDIA: A DICTIONARY OF THE WEIRD, STRANGE & DOWNRIGHT BIZARRE by Jonathan Maberry & David F. Kramer (Citadel Press / Kensington)
  
• STORYTELLERS UNPLUGGED by Joe Nassise and David Niall Wilson (Storytellers Unplugged/)

Superior Achievement in POETRY

• BEING FULL OF LIGHT, INSUBSTANTIAL by Linda Addison (Space and Time)
  
• HERESY by Charlee Jacob (Bedlam Press [Necro Publications])
  
• VECTORS: A WEEK IN THE DEATH OF A PLANET by Charlee Jacob & Marge Simon (Dark Regions Press)
  
• PHANTASMAPEDIA by Mark McLaughlin (Dead Letter Press)
• OSSUARY by JoSelle Vanderhooft (Sam?s Dot Publishing)

###

Jenny Crusie, Reformed Quote-Giver

After posting my previous blog entry today, in which I linked to three recent entries on Jenny Crusie's Aargh Ink blog, I came across something else on her blog that's too good to leave out.

This entry, however, is not humorous--or only marginally so, since Crusie is naturally comic and possibly incapable of writing anything completely humorless. Rather, this is a serious entry on a topic of great interest to authors: getting quotes from other published authors for one's books. Or, from the other end, being asked to give a quote praising another author's soon-to-be-published book. Crusie discusses the effects, and the ethics, of the practice in Confessions of a Reformed Quote Wh*re. Worth reading, and worth sober thought.

P.S. (January 20, 2010) Nearly TWO years after posting this entry originally, I've had to go in and change a few words because of blog-spammers, whose spambots apparently are set to track certain words (e.g., "wh*re," but with an "o" instead of an asterisk) and to post spam about certain medications, etc. For nearly a year this entry had five comments, all made shortly after the original post. In recent months, 44 more "comments" were added, all of them ridiculous, but I don't know how to remove them. And I hate to make it hard for my readers to comment by turning on Comment Moderation. What aggravation. Guess I oughta complain to Blogger's powers-that-be, but I'm too lazy.

Bits 'n' Pieces

Okay, I think everything she does is funny:

Jennifer Crusie blogs on how she screwed up a booksigning. (Even those big-money NYT bestseller-list authors f*ck things up. This is why she calls her blog Aargh Ink.)

In a subsequent post she talks about how she and her houseguests, who are collaborating on a book with her, write in separate rooms in the house and e-mail each other to communicate. (Well, hey, when you're in the creative-flow mode you don't want to be interrupted by a corporeal being appearing at your door, do you?)

And she discusses earworms--you know, those tunes that get stuck in your mind, replaying endlessly until you go insane? Because of Jenny's post, my brain now is alternating between "It's a Small World" (anyone who's ever been to Disneyland or Disney World knows what I mean) and "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (a song I actually love, but not played over and over and over). The comments following the entry are great, and it's interesting to see the oddball songs that have become earworms for people.