The Art of Manliness - Become a Focused Monotasker

00:00:00.000 Hey, this is Brett, we're taking a break from a new episode today, so we're rebroadcasting

00:00:03.480 episode number 768, Become a Focused Monotasker with Thatcher Wine.

00:00:08.040 Hope you enjoy it, we'll be back on Wednesday with a brand new episode.

00:00:18.500 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:22.420 Write an email while on a Zoom call, talking on the phone while walking, scrolling through

00:00:26.100 social media while watching a movie.

00:00:27.720 In both our work and our play, we're all doing more and more multitasking, doing two

00:00:31.620 things at once makes us feel as if we're being more efficient and getting more done.

00:00:34.960 But my guest today would say that all this task juggling actually makes us less productive

00:00:38.340 while diminishing the quality of our work and stressing our minds.

00:00:41.180 And we'd be better off curbing our multitasking in favor of monotasking.

00:00:44.760 His name is Thatcher Wine, and he's the author of the book, The 12 Monotasks, Do One Thing

00:00:48.620 at a Time to Do Everything Better.

00:00:50.160 Today on the show, Thatcher explains the illusions around multitasking and the benefits of monotasking,

00:00:54.360 that is, bringing our full focus to a single task at a time.

00:00:57.720 We discussed why reading is a foundational part of becoming a monotasker, and then getting

00:01:01.520 into some of the other activities Thatcher recommends monotasking, including walking,

00:01:05.020 listening, traveling, commuting, and thinking.

00:01:07.580 Thatcher argues that doing things like listening to a podcast while cleaning your house isn't

00:01:10.760 necessarily a bad thing, but that you may want to try stripping everything away from

00:01:14.020 your daily tasks except the primary tasks themselves to observe the resulting effect and

00:01:18.160 strengthen your monotasking muscles and rebuild your attention span.

00:01:21.200 Once you've experimented with doing a task alone, you may decide to layer back in the

00:01:24.760 second activity, or maybe decide you actually like giving it your all.

00:01:28.160 After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash monotask.

00:01:44.040 All right.

00:01:45.040 Thatcher Wine, welcome to the show.

00:01:47.140 Thanks, Brett.

00:01:47.660 It's a pleasure to be here.

00:01:48.440 So you got a book out called The 12 Monotasks, Do One Thing at a Time to Do Everything Better.

00:01:54.740 So in this book, you make a case for monotasking, and I think to understand what that is, it's

00:01:59.300 important to talk about what the opposite of monotasking is, and that's multitasking.

00:02:03.300 People have probably been multitasking since time immemorial, but it wasn't until, I'd say,

00:02:08.440 20, 30 years ago that it really became a thing in our culture.

00:02:11.940 And in the book, you kind of do a little cultural history of multitasking.

00:02:15.160 I mean, when did multitasking become a thing in our popular culture?

00:02:20.400 It's a great question.

00:02:21.220 So pretty much, if you think of our computers and how long they've been around, that's basically

00:02:26.820 how long we've really thought about multitasking as a way of living, right?

00:02:32.000 So computers were invented.

00:02:33.920 Well, the term was first used in the 1960s to refer to an IBM computer and how it could

00:02:39.980 do multiple things at one time.

00:02:41.920 Amazing.

00:02:42.640 The computer can multitask.

00:02:44.940 And then as people started getting personal computers, mostly in the 80s, and then got connected

00:02:50.940 to the internet in the 90s, and we got these cell phones and smartphones in the 2000s, and

00:02:55.320 now we all know where we are today.

00:02:57.600 All of our devices do all these different things, a lot of things at one time.

00:03:03.580 And since people have invented computers, we kind of project onto them, if we made them

00:03:09.040 do this multitasking, maybe we can do the same thing.

00:03:12.120 Plus, at the same time, life has just gotten busier in general.

00:03:16.280 Our to-do lists are really long.

00:03:17.600 There are a lot of demands, financial, societal pressure, social media pressure, FOMO, fear

00:03:22.580 of missing out.

00:03:23.280 And so we just tend to take on more and more and more and think we can do it like our devices

00:03:27.880 can.

00:03:28.760 And when you were exploring and researching this book, were you able to find where people

00:03:33.400 tend to try to multitask the most?

00:03:35.080 Like what tasks do they try to do at the same time the most?

00:03:39.560 That's a great question.

00:03:40.760 I mean, I think if you just look around in general, like I'm a very experiential person.

00:03:45.740 The book does integrate a lot of research and a little bit of neuroscience.

00:03:49.720 But my point, a lot of it is just like, you don't have to look very far.

00:03:53.280 To see people multitasking all the time.

00:03:56.000 You know, if you go out to a restaurant and somebody's sitting by themselves, or even

00:03:59.040 if they're with a few friends, like they're all on their phones a lot of the time.

00:04:02.920 I live in Colorado.

00:04:03.900 And, you know, unfortunately, when I drive to work or bike or go for a walk, I see people

00:04:09.300 on their phones while driving all the time.

00:04:11.860 So it tends to be this kind of like permanent culture of doing more than one thing at a time.

00:04:17.500 A lot of times involving your phone.

00:04:19.340 And I think we've seen over the past couple of years, you know, with the pandemic and

00:04:23.980 the transition to more people working at home, everybody who does that can relate to the

00:04:28.740 feeling of just having lots of browser windows like you open and doing multiple things at

00:04:33.100 a time, being on a Zoom call, answering an email.

00:04:36.180 Well, your kids come in and say they're hungry for lunch.

00:04:38.960 Your dog wants to go for a walk.

00:04:40.880 It's multitasking.

00:04:41.740 Not all of it's dangerous multitasking, like texting and driving.

00:04:45.500 Some of it's perfectly harmless, like folding laundry while listening to a podcast.

00:04:49.600 Some people might be doing that now.

00:04:51.440 That's totally fine.

00:04:52.900 A lot of my point in the book is about like bringing some awareness to, is it within your

00:04:57.660 own control that you are multitasking?

00:05:00.000 Did you decide to do that or did, you know, social media tempt you to?

00:05:05.200 Some notification on your phone take you out of what you should have been doing.

00:05:09.320 Things like that.

00:05:10.460 Yeah.

00:05:10.700 I imagine the pandemic with the Zoom has really increased the amount of multitasking.

00:05:15.080 I've been on Zoom calls where you've heard the tappity tappity of keys on the other end

00:05:19.860 while you're talking to somebody.

00:05:21.360 It's like, okay, that guy's answering emails while he's talking to me.

00:05:23.680 He's probably not really listening.

00:05:24.520 One of the tasks in the 12 monotasks is listening in the book.

00:05:29.440 And I go through 12 different tasks and I know we'll talk about a few of them today.

00:05:32.660 But one of my tips, I guess I thought of after the book, is basically listen as if you're

00:05:37.480 recording a podcast.

00:05:39.800 What would you, like, I'm not tapping on my keys.

00:05:41.960 I can't pay attention to anything else besides our conversation.

00:05:45.120 You know, so if you're trying to elevate your work or your relationship or, you know,

00:05:51.200 your conversation with your kids and really pay attention to what they're saying

00:05:53.900 and not saying, listen like you're recording a podcast.

00:05:57.000 You don't have to do it every single conversation all day, but it helps you really bring your

00:06:01.920 full attention to one thing at a time and do it well.

00:06:04.800 So the reason we multitask is to get more done.

00:06:07.540 What does the research say about that?

00:06:08.940 Are there, does that actually happen?

00:06:10.640 And are there downsides to multitasking?

00:06:13.700 It doesn't happen.

00:06:14.840 And yes, there are downsides.

00:06:15.980 Very definitive research has been done on this.

00:06:18.480 You make more mistakes when you multitask.

00:06:21.060 You don't get as much done as if you had, you know, done one thing at a time, then moved

00:06:27.020 on to the next thing.

00:06:28.220 You think you're going to get more done, but you actually end up feeling more stressed and

00:06:34.140 overwhelmed.

00:06:35.140 So you develop, basically our brains are only capable of doing one thing at a time.

00:06:39.560 Studies have been done where there basically are 2% of the population who can be considered

00:06:44.040 super taskers.

00:06:45.140 Those people can do like two cognitive tasks at a time.

00:06:49.920 Most people can fold the laundry and listen to a podcast.

00:06:53.340 And for the rest of us, the other 98%, like, I think it's okay that we can't do more than 0.85

00:06:57.880 one thing at a time.

00:06:58.560 Our brains were built to like, yes, pay attention to like the dangers out there in the world.

00:07:04.100 You know, in old days, it was like a wild animal or, you know, some sort of threat to

00:07:08.360 your human existence.

00:07:09.800 These days, it's very different.

00:07:11.040 So a lot of things get our attention that aren't life-altering matters.

00:07:17.200 And when we try to pay attention to more than one thing at a time, like typing out that email

00:07:22.480 response while half paying attention to a Zoom call, you don't do either of them well.

00:07:27.200 You make more mistakes, it takes longer, and you get stressed out because you aren't getting

00:07:32.880 things done and you just have this cognitive bottleneck.

00:07:35.300 You're not quite sure why you're stressed out, not feeling good.

00:07:39.540 But it's probably because your attention is spread so thin.

00:07:42.420 Yeah, that's an important point.

00:07:43.160 You said that we can actually only do one thing at a time.

00:07:45.900 So when we think we're multitasking, what we're doing is just task switching back and

00:07:49.760 forth over and over again between one task and the next.

00:07:52.660 Yeah, so a few definitions that are really helpful.

00:07:55.320 You're exactly right.

00:07:56.120 So most people, when they think of multitasking, what they're actually doing is task switching.

00:08:01.920 You do one thing, then you do another thing, and then you go back and forth and back

00:08:06.580 and forth.

00:08:07.020 The studies have been done that show it takes about 20 minutes for your brain really to come

00:08:12.460 back to from one thing to another.

00:08:15.980 And if you're really fast switching back and forth, what happens is you're not giving yourself

00:08:21.480 the 20 minutes to reset, focus on that presentation you're working on or that conversation with

00:08:28.040 your kids.

00:08:29.700 And so you're not doing a good job, and it's taking longer as a result.

00:08:33.940 So back to the definitions, yeah, so that's task switching, which we think is multitasking.

00:08:39.460 There's also primary tasking and background tasking.

00:08:43.460 So that would be the example of you're listening to a podcast in the background while folding

00:08:48.320 laundry in the foreground or vice versa.

00:08:50.700 It's usually like a very automated, repetitive thing that you know how to do.

00:08:55.900 And if you make the conscious decision to combine those things, that's fine.

00:08:59.700 Generally, we can do those things well.

00:09:01.180 There are some people who can't even do either one, and I think that's great too.

00:09:04.940 I mean, if you're aware of your own abilities to pay attention and monotask, then you can

00:09:10.860 get through life, I think, much better and figure out where to put your attention and focus.

00:09:15.300 All right, so multitasking, it causes more errors, actually sometimes make things take

00:09:19.960 longer than they really should.

00:09:21.540 And you quote Cal Newport in the book.

00:09:23.640 We've had him on the podcast talking about his idea of deep work.

00:09:26.400 And he makes that point too.

00:09:27.760 He drives that point home.

00:09:28.520 When you try to multitask, it actually just makes the work crappier oftentimes.

00:09:33.180 And then also just that back and forth switching, it stresses you out.

00:09:36.520 And that's why a lot of people, I don't know, you hear a lot of people talking like, I'm

00:09:39.980 just feeling like overwhelmed.

00:09:41.240 And they're like, but I don't really do anything.

00:09:43.000 Why am I feeling overwhelmed?

00:09:43.980 And it's likely all that task switching they've been doing throughout the day between their

00:09:48.980 smartphone and their computer and their kids and drive.

00:09:52.160 That's what's exhausting you.

00:09:55.000 A hundred percent.

00:09:55.800 Yeah.

00:09:56.140 And I'm a huge Cal Newport fan and his work has been very influential in my work and both

00:10:03.160 as how I run my business, which is called Juniper Books, just as a small business entrepreneur

00:10:08.980 and manager and creative, like how to focus and get things done.

00:10:13.540 But then it's also influenced how I think about monotasking and the concepts of, especially

00:10:19.940 when it relates to technology and kind of practicing digital minimalism in order to wean yourself

00:10:25.780 off your devices and then reclaim your ability to get your deep work done.

00:10:29.880 I should say a lot of, I think the pressure that people feel that you mentioned to do

00:10:36.780 more than one thing at a time that results in, you know, being overwhelmed and not getting

00:10:40.800 things done.

00:10:41.340 Like there's just this glorification of multitasking and always doing more in our society these

00:10:47.940 days and then you add on the technology, which convinces you that you're good at it.

00:10:52.860 You can do it, you know, gives you just enough notifications and feedback that like you keep

00:10:57.420 going and you think you can do it all.

00:10:59.440 But, you know, if you look at where our time goes and how happy we are these days and how

00:11:04.440 that tracks against, you know, the increase of technology in society, it's, you know, it's

00:11:10.680 not a sustainable equation for the future.

00:11:13.160 So I think we have to reclaim our ability to focus this way.

00:11:16.260 Yeah, it's really hard.

00:11:16.980 I think a lot of people have heard the research that multitasking isn't effective, but I know

00:11:21.800 that stuff, but I still struggle to let go of the idea.

00:11:25.060 Like I still want to do as much as I can at the same time.

00:11:29.060 And I think that goes back, we had Oliver Berkman on the podcast a couple months ago,

00:11:33.340 talk about his book, 4,000 Weeks.

00:11:35.480 And he makes this interesting case that a lot of, it's just part of being human.

00:11:39.500 Like we were able to think about infinite things that we can do, but we're finite beings

00:11:44.680 at the same time.

00:11:45.320 Like we can only do so much.

00:11:46.900 And he makes this case, a lot of productivity, you know, tactics that we've developed.

00:11:52.320 It's, it's trying to make us try to make our finite cells into infinite cells or be able

00:11:57.400 to accomplish all those infinite things.

00:11:58.900 And he says, you know, you kind of have to resign yourself that you are not infinite.

00:12:03.360 So you have to just be okay with doing, getting as much done as you can in a day and not freaking

00:12:09.520 out about trying to get it all done.

00:12:12.180 Yeah.

00:12:12.580 I'm a huge fan of Oliver's book too.

00:12:14.860 So yeah.

00:12:16.480 I mean, I think we have to acknowledge the realities and that's a lot of what his book

00:12:20.060 is about that, you know, yes, you want to do more and more, but we are humans.

00:12:26.860 There are only 24 hours in the day.

00:12:29.520 And what the solution to living a happier, more fulfilling life is not to just always

00:12:36.100 be doing more.

00:12:36.900 Um, you have to be realistic.

00:12:39.580 And so a lot of what I bring it back to in the 12 monotasks is about the present moment.

00:12:45.260 And in each moment, you can only be doing one thing at a time.

00:12:50.900 You can make it look like you're multitasking.

00:12:53.060 You may aspire to, you know, get more done, make more money, have more friends, you know,

00:12:59.700 more followers, whatever.

00:13:01.220 But in each individual moment, like that's where everything really happens.

00:13:04.720 And so if you choose to do one thing in that moment, that's really, I think the key to

00:13:09.900 productivity and happiness.

00:13:12.720 So, okay.

00:13:12.980 The downsides of multitasking is taking longer on stuff, doing stuff, not as well, feeling

00:13:19.020 stressed out.

00:13:20.000 I imagine the benefits of monotasking is, are, is the opposite of those things.

00:13:25.280 Yeah.

00:13:25.940 So I think of it in, you know, three or four kind of key benefits of monotasking.

00:13:31.200 One is you get more done.

00:13:32.840 And just overall, you boost your productivity.

00:13:35.520 Second is you decrease your stress level.

00:13:38.260 So that feeling of being overwhelmed and not getting anything done leads to, you know,

00:13:43.900 less stress if you monotask instead of multitasking.

00:13:46.660 The third thing is you, you increase your happiness.

00:13:49.540 And that, a lot of that comes from improving your relationships with other people, being more

00:13:54.820 present in the moment.

00:13:56.180 And with the people you either work with or your family, your friends, and just being

00:14:02.460 more connected to everybody, not being, you know, half paying attention all the time.

00:14:07.480 So that's what it's really all about.

00:14:09.020 The productivity, the stress, and the happiness.

00:14:11.360 Happiness.

00:14:11.680 I imagine, do you still struggle with multitasking, even though you've written the book on monotasking?

00:14:17.460 Absolutely.

00:14:19.140 I say, you know, I wrote it largely for myself out of my own experience, like how I went through

00:14:25.020 some very distracting things, like in addition to all the distractions that we faced that we've

00:14:30.820 talked about as far as technology and work and just keeping up with the pace of life.

00:14:34.720 I went through cancer treatment a few years ago, and a divorce, and putting my business

00:14:40.220 back together after going through those things.

00:14:42.540 And I really had to kind of sit down and figure out, like, how do I navigate my way through

00:14:46.380 all this, continue to do good work, be productive, creative, successful, be a good father?

00:14:53.640 And, you know, how have I done it in the past, like even before I went through those things?

00:14:58.020 And so the philosophy very much came out of that.

00:15:00.420 But it hasn't taken away the problem.

00:15:02.880 Like, it's just made me more aware of when I'm multitasking versus monotasking.

00:15:08.340 And therefore, how do I feel about it?

00:15:10.160 And I think it's made a huge improvement in my life.

00:15:14.220 I say for everyone, like, it's not about achieving some sort of monotasking sainthood,

00:15:18.620 right?

00:15:18.840 It's not like you're going to get to this enlightened level, and all the problems are going to go

00:15:22.900 away.

00:15:23.340 It's more about having an awareness that this is something you're going to have to face,

00:15:27.320 like in every moment, and definitely into the future as the future gets more distracting.

00:15:32.100 There's going to be more technology, more pressure of every kind to, you know, pay attention

00:15:38.160 to things that are important.

00:15:39.380 So it's good to build what I call the monotasking muscles now so that you have them for everything

00:15:46.020 you need to do today and into the future.

00:15:48.520 Okay.

00:15:48.620 So in the book, you highlight 12 tasks that you think are right for monotasking and help

00:15:52.540 you build those monotasking muscles.

00:15:54.580 And the first one is reading.

00:15:56.840 Why do you start off with that?

00:15:57.900 So a lot of my thinking about reading goes back a really long time, and it's very connected

00:16:05.580 to the work that I do at Juniper Books, where we curate book sets and book collections for

00:16:11.700 clients around the world and try to give people more and more reasons to buy books and keep

00:16:17.200 books in their home and read books.

00:16:19.060 And especially as I was going through cancer treatment, I was thinking like, why do I do

00:16:24.640 what I do?

00:16:25.620 And how can I, you know, should I do it on the other side of these health issues?

00:16:30.740 And why is it good for the world?

00:16:32.500 Like, what's my mission in life?

00:16:34.180 So I really started thinking about reading in a broader sense than just bookselling, for

00:16:40.320 example.

00:16:40.720 And I think books are just inherently good for us as human beings.

00:16:45.120 Not only are they great for like learning new things and being entertained, but they

00:16:50.100 also strengthen our ability to pay attention.

00:16:53.140 So when you read for 20 minutes or however long you read for, you get back a strengthened

00:16:59.720 attention span because you gave your attention, like it all went into one single point of focus

00:17:05.660 on the page.

00:17:06.440 And I am a big believer in printed books because I think we all look at screens too much.

00:17:11.900 And I think the experience of reading a printed book just feels different.

00:17:15.780 Having an object in your hands, feeling, you know, where you are in the book, how far through

00:17:20.540 it you are, where things happen on the page.

00:17:23.400 So I thought a lot about reading, why it's good for the world.

00:17:27.120 I researched, you know, really dedicated readers in the world like Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett.

00:17:33.240 And I don't think it's a coincidence that some of the most successful people in the world

00:17:37.880 are also really big readers.

00:17:40.860 Their ability to pay attention and be productive is enhanced by their reading habits.

00:17:47.000 It's not just that they know more stuff.

00:17:49.920 So I put, you know, all these things together and I thought about technology and smartphones

00:17:54.380 and I thought reading a book is kind of the opposite of a smartphone.

00:17:59.680 Reading a book strengthens your attention.

00:18:04.580 Looking at your smartphone fragments it, makes you think you can multitask and do lots of

00:18:09.220 things at one time.

00:18:10.980 And so that's kind of where I thought of the definition of a monotask to begin with was

00:18:15.380 reading a book.

00:18:16.440 And then I expanded that to think about, well, what if we took that same approach, that focus

00:18:20.580 that we bring to reading and applied it to other everyday activities.

00:18:25.500 And then I, you know, started looking into and writing about walking, listening, sleeping,

00:18:31.920 thinking, and how just if you give those 100% of your attention, can you do them better?

00:18:37.180 And can they give you something back in the same way that books and reading give you back

00:18:41.560 your strength and attention span and ability to pay attention to everything in life and do

00:18:46.920 it all better?

00:18:47.360 So you don't, you don't just have to read all the time.

00:18:50.400 You can do any or all the 12 monotasks.

00:18:53.000 No, I think reading is a great foundation.

00:18:54.940 It's a great exercise to strengthen that monotasking muscle because especially paper books.

00:19:00.320 And I think the thing that makes reading difficult today is that we try to do it on our screens.

00:19:06.620 And I found, and I think they've done research, like Nicholas Carr has done research on this.

00:19:10.580 When we, when we consume text via a screen, we have a tendency to skim more and you're just

00:19:17.640 not as focused.

00:19:18.240 But if I have like a paper book or like a paper magazine, that's all, that's the only thing

00:19:23.240 you can focus on.

00:19:23.760 You can't go anywhere else.

00:19:24.820 And it really forces you to stick with the reading.

00:19:29.800 If you're reading on a smartphone, there's always that temptation to like switch apps or

00:19:33.520 go to the next browser, click this link.

00:19:35.320 And it doesn't allow you to get really focused.

00:19:39.080 Yeah.

00:19:39.340 So Nicholas, you're, you're three for three.

00:19:41.940 You mentioned three of my favorite authors.

00:19:44.600 Nicholas Carr and I have had some great conversations over the years about the value of printed books.

00:19:49.640 And, and I have an excerpt that he wrote in my, in the 12 monotasks as well.

00:19:54.760 And a lot of it, yeah, it does come down to that like physical tactile relationship you

00:20:01.840 have with the printed page.

00:20:03.440 That's very different from the screen and how your brain, you know, creates a physical

00:20:11.240 tactile or physical map of what's happening in the book, draws connections between things.

00:20:17.380 And the information tends to sink in more than what we read on the screen.

00:20:21.980 Plus, you know, I'm a big believer and basically built a whole career out of like what your books

00:20:26.620 do when you're not reading them.

00:20:28.000 So they, they sit on your shelves and they tell a story even without opening them and

00:20:34.200 reading what's happening on the pages.

00:20:35.580 They tell a story across your bookshelves and they were, every time you walk by them or

00:20:38.940 see them in the zoom background or see somebody else's books, when you go to their house or

00:20:42.680 see it on the screen, you learn about them and kind of their relationship to the world

00:20:48.620 through what they're interested in.

00:20:51.160 They may not have read all those books, but that's, those are the subjects that interest

00:20:55.620 them.

00:20:56.040 That's the story that they want to tell.

00:20:57.380 So I think books just have this storytelling capability and we have a different relationship

00:21:02.660 to them than just what the digital version of the content shows us on the screen.

00:21:08.180 No, I think it's fast.

00:21:09.480 No, I agree with that.

00:21:10.260 I, I prefer physical books over digital books.

00:21:12.660 And what I like about it is, you know, I've got bookshelves all over in our house and I

00:21:17.260 like being able to walk by and then just like the spine catches my eye for whatever reason.

00:21:22.960 And then I pull it out and I, oh, there's this new bit or here's a refresher of something

00:21:28.300 that I read a long time ago.

00:21:29.760 I'm glad I picked this up.

00:21:31.240 I noticed I've got, you know, a couple hundred books on my Kindle.

00:21:34.180 I never think about the books on my, in fact, I forget which books I have on my Kindle.

00:21:37.660 They're down like this digital black hole that I can never access again because it's not

00:21:42.560 there in front of me physically.

00:21:45.280 You know, you never, I don't know how many people are going to cocktail parties these

00:21:49.240 days, but you don't go to a cocktail party and say, Hey, can I take a look at your Kindle

00:21:52.780 and see what you, what's on your reading list and then decide what to talk about.

00:21:56.100 It doesn't work that way.

00:21:57.320 So yeah, books are really fun, whether it's you or somebody else seeing them just to see

00:22:02.220 them on the shelves and pick one up randomly.

00:22:04.540 I do that all the time.

00:22:05.380 It's fun.

00:22:05.960 So how do you train your brain for monotask reading?

00:22:08.700 I mean, what's, if someone hasn't monotasked reading in a while and their brain's all,

00:22:12.320 you know, scattered from consuming content on their phone, what's a good way to start

00:22:16.820 with that?

00:22:17.900 It's hard.

00:22:18.420 And I think you first have to acknowledge that it is hard and that it's different from

00:22:22.980 what we've been used to doing, looking at our phones and not having to sit with a little

00:22:28.960 bit of, you know, what may feel like boredom and silence and quiet for a little time that

00:22:35.220 reading brings, but those are the benefits.

00:22:37.240 So at first they might seem unfamiliar and different, and that's a good thing.

00:22:43.100 But I think, you know, you have to start wherever you are.

00:22:46.700 And in the book, I talk about reading as a monotask being about 20 minutes long.

00:22:51.320 You can start with 30 seconds, but I would highly recommend starting, you know, always

00:22:56.780 starting with reading on paper.

00:22:58.140 It can be a newspaper, could be a magazine article, could be a book you've read before,

00:23:03.200 and therefore it's a lot easier to read and kind of re-enter the world of reading.

00:23:06.840 Or it could be a new book.

00:23:09.320 Go to the bookstore, you know, and just intuitively pick out something that speaks to you.

00:23:13.740 But give it your full attention.

00:23:16.320 Expect that you might read a few pages, your mind will wander.

00:23:20.680 You may have to go back a little bit, and that's okay.

00:23:23.760 If you give it your full attention, you'll find that your attention will strengthen each

00:23:28.280 time you go back to the book.

00:23:29.440 And if you can build a habit of maybe reading the same time every day or at the same place

00:23:34.820 in your home, it'll start to cue your attention to the fact that, like, you're focusing, this

00:23:41.660 is what you're doing in this place at this time.

00:23:43.800 It may take a while to figure out what the right routine is for you, but it's definitely

00:23:47.940 worth it.

00:23:48.500 And once you get into that rhythm, you'll find that it's just like an infinite world of

00:23:54.220 discovery, and you can use it for learning about, you know, your work, something about

00:24:01.040 your kids, or just being entertained in a way that you haven't been entertained in the

00:24:04.440 last few years.

00:24:05.800 We're going to take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.

00:24:10.340 And now back to the show.

00:24:12.200 The next monotask is walking.

00:24:15.340 In the book, you start off, in the chapter, you start off talking about some famous monotasking

00:24:19.380 walkers.

00:24:20.000 Who are some of these guys?

00:24:20.740 Basically, philosophers, thinkers, scientists have used walking throughout history to work

00:24:26.640 out their ideas, their thoughts, to just get away from the stress of life, even before

00:24:32.060 all this technology and, you know, the fast-moving pace of 21st century life.

00:24:36.740 So people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, or Nietzsche, the philosopher, or Socrates, they all walked

00:24:45.360 as a matter of thinking.

00:24:47.200 And that might sound like a multitask to you, and it can be.

00:24:52.360 So I wouldn't necessarily recommend walking to go come up with a brilliant idea.

00:24:56.960 But if you put down your work and leave things behind and go out into nature or even the city,

00:25:03.680 go around the block, whatever you have available to you, if you give your full attention to it

00:25:08.080 and pay attention to your walk, like the sounds of your feet, the sounds of nature, the sights

00:25:13.900 that you're seeing, if you resist the temptation to take a picture on your iPhone, things like

00:25:18.480 that, you'll really treat walking as a monotask.

00:25:22.320 And then you can decide to add back later some problem-solving that you want to do, or some

00:25:27.360 idea will just come to you.

00:25:28.960 Okay, so that's interesting.

00:25:29.660 So walking is one of those tasks that it's easy enough where you could multitask.

00:25:34.720 You could, again, like think about something, or you even talk on the phone, or let's do a

00:25:39.760 podcast.

00:25:40.100 And you're not against that.

00:25:42.400 You're okay with people listening to a podcast and folding laundry.

00:25:45.360 You think that's fine.

00:25:46.120 But it sounds like you're encouraging people to, every now and then, just focus on an easy

00:25:52.600 task, like a task as simple as walking, so you can strengthen those monotasking muscles.

00:25:58.140 I think the first step is to strip everything away and get down to one task and identify that

00:26:03.240 as your monotask.

00:26:05.140 And then you can decide to add back, layer on, and occasionally multitask.

00:26:10.280 But it will be within your control because you will have identified when you're monotasking

00:26:15.660 versus multitasking.

00:26:17.240 And you'll also be strengthening your monotasking muscles so that you can better resist distractions

00:26:23.700 when they pop up out of your control.

00:26:26.480 And you'll say, not right now.

00:26:28.460 I'm going to focus on this.

00:26:29.600 When I get it done, I'm going to move on to the next thing.

00:26:32.420 So with monotask walking, that's just, you're not going to be, you're just going to go and

00:26:35.540 you're just going to focus on just the walk.

00:26:38.260 Like, what are your steps?

00:26:39.260 Is it kind of like a meditative practice?

00:26:40.860 Like, there's like walking meditations, right?

00:26:42.400 You're just focusing on the steps.

00:26:43.760 How does the air feel around me?

00:26:45.140 Is that what it looks like?

00:26:47.200 I think that's a great way to think of it, yeah, as like a mindfulness or meditative

00:26:51.620 walk.

00:26:53.200 And to really think about your other senses.

00:26:56.520 So your body pretty much knows how to walk.

00:26:58.520 So if you think about your other senses, like sound, hearing, the sounds you're hearing,

00:27:03.920 what you're smelling, what you're seeing.

00:27:07.860 And, you know, if you want to touch the trees or the flowers or something, that's fine.

00:27:11.720 But it's basically bringing your attention fully to the walk in order to relax your mind.

00:27:19.820 And I think like people, when you're thinking about something else and doing another thing,

00:27:26.200 so if you're thinking while walking, because it's happening in your own brain and nobody

00:27:31.640 can see you doing it, it doesn't like necessarily fit the classic definition of multitasking

00:27:36.540 that is visible to everybody.

00:27:38.960 So I think it's good to bring some awareness to that.

00:27:41.500 It's not always a bad thing, but just to acknowledge, you know, I am trying to do two

00:27:46.260 things at a time here.

00:27:47.860 I'm going to choose one.

00:27:49.380 I'm going to give more of my attention to it and see what happens.

00:27:52.980 And I guess a good way to start with that, I think you talk about the book 20 Minutes.

00:27:58.340 Again, just like go for a 20-minute walk where all you're focused on is the walk.

00:28:02.620 And I'll repeat the 20 minutes a lot in several of the monotests throughout the book, because

00:28:08.060 I think it's a good goal for our attention spans.

00:28:10.460 It's really hard.

00:28:11.700 I mean, studies have been done these days that show that a lot of people can't pay attention

00:28:16.840 for more than six seconds.

00:28:19.140 And we have to strengthen that.

00:28:22.500 There's so much every person wants to do on this planet, whether it's on their to-do

00:28:28.340 list or just having a great relationship, their family or their partner.

00:28:33.680 And we have to basically reverse the trend from fragmenting our attention.

00:28:39.640 Look at this ad.

00:28:40.820 Look at this notification.

00:28:41.980 Download this app.

00:28:43.300 Respond to this.

00:28:44.060 Click on that.

00:28:44.720 It only will get better and go the opposite direction if we do things like go for a walk

00:28:50.520 for 20 minutes or read a book for 20 minutes and the other monotasks.

00:28:54.280 And it seems like also walking is a great monotask to do when you're switching from one task to

00:28:59.320 the next.

00:28:59.900 Because as you said, it takes you, what, 25 minutes for your brain to shift from one activity

00:29:06.000 to the next.

00:29:07.280 Walking can kind of be like that buffer where you sort of clear.

00:29:09.820 So you work on one project at work, you're done.

00:29:13.080 I'm going to take a quick 20-minute walk.

00:29:15.140 You come back and your brain's kind of ready to work again.

00:29:18.880 It's like a reboot.

00:29:21.820 Absolutely.

00:29:22.380 It's like rebooting your computer.

00:29:23.740 Yeah.

00:29:23.980 I mean, it's like if you acknowledge, hey, I'm going to lose that 20 minutes anyway,

00:29:27.900 while my brain kind of consolidates this information from the last thing and gets ready for the

00:29:32.300 next thing, it's the perfect time to go for a walk.

00:29:34.960 I often say when you least think you have the time to go for a walk, that's,

00:29:39.820 the most important time to go for a walk.

00:29:41.840 Right.

00:29:42.260 So it will help you with everything else you need to do going forward.

00:29:45.480 It's not a loss of 20 minutes at all.

00:29:47.540 It's pressing the reset button, like you said.

00:29:49.280 So instead of surfing Reddit or whatever, go for a walk.

00:29:53.140 Yes.

00:29:53.560 Okay.

00:29:54.200 So another monotask is listening.

00:29:56.340 And you explore listening in two ways.

00:29:58.680 Listening to media, so we're talking like music or maybe an audio book, it seems like one

00:30:03.500 of those tasks that you could do at the same time.

00:30:06.200 It's mindless, simple enough that it's okay to multitask listening to a podcast while doing

00:30:10.800 something else.

00:30:11.880 Despite that, you still encourage people again to like, why don't you just try listening to

00:30:16.320 this song or this album?

00:30:18.200 And that's the only thing you're doing.

00:30:19.480 Why is that?

00:30:21.560 I think it's a good skill to have.

00:30:22.920 And I think nobody else is really encouraging people in the world to do one thing at a time.

00:30:29.740 It's, yes, you can do more than one thing at a time, but that doesn't necessarily mean

00:30:34.540 that you should or that it's good for you.

00:30:37.060 And because listening in that one-way listening example, whereas two-way listening would be

00:30:43.820 more like a conversation.

00:30:45.300 So the one-way listening would be more like a podcast or a university lecture.

00:30:50.160 And if you can develop the ability to pay attention to the whole thing, which is really

00:30:57.660 hard, I completely acknowledge that.

00:31:00.340 I think very few people could actually pay attention to an hour-long class or podcast.

00:31:07.560 And, but if you strengthen your ability to pay attention in longer increments, you'll

00:31:13.380 absorb more of the information, you'll spend less time going back and re-listening to it,

00:31:18.200 and then you can apply it again where you need to.

00:31:20.920 So if you are going back to school or getting a graduate degree or something, you know, those

00:31:26.200 are important skills to have.

00:31:28.120 And I have two kids, you know, and I can see what happens to their brains with technology.

00:31:34.840 And I have to wonder, you know, when they progressively go through their education and go to college

00:31:40.040 and everything, like, is their ability to sit in one place, be a little bit bored in a

00:31:45.260 classroom and listen to a lecture and get all the information affected.

00:31:48.980 So I think it's just a good skill for all of us to have to strengthen that.

00:31:52.660 And thankfully, like, there are all these great podcasts and sources of listening out there

00:31:57.940 to practice with every day.

00:31:59.660 No, and I think I have a tendency, my wife has this tendency too, like, she'll listen to 0.86

00:32:04.200 a podcast while she's doing a chore, like folding laundry or just cleaning the house.

00:32:09.660 And, you know, I've done that too.

00:32:11.440 When I've got some other chore, I'll listen to a podcast and I find that, yeah, on the

00:32:15.580 one hand, it kind of gives you something to do while you're, you know, twiddling away with

00:32:20.720 your hands cleaning.

00:32:22.020 But at the same time, I noticed that I miss things in the audio.

00:32:25.440 Like, actually, I felt like I miss things that I'm listening because I'm focused on this

00:32:28.680 task that I'm doing or the task that I'm multitasking, listening to audio with takes

00:32:33.940 longer because I stop and listen to the like, oh, here's this good part in this episode.

00:32:38.000 And so, you know, cleaning takes longer if I just had been cleaning and not listening

00:32:43.180 to the podcast.

00:32:44.720 And if you think about the cleaning as a monotask, it's not one of the 12 monotasks in my book,

00:32:50.280 but you can do anything as a monotask with your full attention and you will be the judge.

00:32:57.820 Like, you don't need a research study to tell you, did you do it better?

00:33:01.860 Did you do it faster?

00:33:02.960 You make fewer mistakes.

00:33:04.080 Did you maybe find ways that you enjoyed it that you had kind of numbed out before?

00:33:10.200 And cleaning may not be the best example in terms of discovering amazing new things about

00:33:14.860 yourself, but there are lots of things in this world that I think we've gotten used to

00:33:18.520 multitasking and we miss a lot of the details.

00:33:22.620 It's obvious in a podcast, you know, if you gave me a quiz, 20 questions, these came up,

00:33:27.480 were you paying attention?

00:33:28.240 And it's not going to be so obvious with cleaning or folding the laundry, but I think

00:33:33.160 there's something to discover in everything we do if we pay attention to it.

00:33:38.020 What about listening to music while you work?

00:33:39.680 I've seen conflicting research on this and the one has seen research.

00:33:42.640 Yes, it can help.

00:33:44.040 Other research says, no, it's actually distracting.

00:33:46.120 You should just put on noise canceling earphones and just work in complete silence.

00:33:51.680 So different people have a different reaction.

00:33:54.960 Their brains work differently with different stimuli.

00:33:59.120 For me, I find music to be really helpful for working out, just changing my mood, essentially.

00:34:05.180 And I think probably a lot of people can relate to that.

00:34:07.680 You want to go high energy, put on some loud music.

00:34:11.780 Whereas with work, if I really have to think, I can't listen to anything with lyrics.

00:34:17.700 I can sometimes listen to classical music or piano or something like that.

00:34:22.620 And that is helpful.

00:34:23.340 But other times, I'll just now, because I'm so used to thinking as a monotask, I sit down

00:34:29.820 at my desk, I put on my big headphones.

00:34:32.520 And sometimes an hour later, I forget that I never put on any music.

00:34:35.720 It's more just the ritual of here's where I'm going to be.

00:34:40.600 I'm going to give my full attention to my work and thinking.

00:34:44.060 And the music is not really required as part of that.

00:34:48.720 Some people might find that it is required for them to do their best thinking or other work.

00:34:53.400 So another part of listening is that two-way conversation when we're talking and listening

00:34:57.020 to people in real life.

00:34:58.320 And this is more effortful.

00:35:00.100 And it's hard.

00:35:01.780 It can be hard just to listen to somebody.

00:35:03.420 What gets in the way of monotasking to this kind of interpersonal listening?

00:35:07.360 Listening is really challenging.

00:35:08.580 And I think it's when early readers read the book, they said that that was one of the chapters

00:35:13.900 that made the biggest impact on their life.

00:35:15.820 And I think a lot of that is because we've built up this expectation that people aren't

00:35:23.580 really going to listen to us completely.

00:35:26.220 And it's surprising to us when they do listen, when they give us their full attention.

00:35:32.040 We kind of expect that someone's going to be scrolling through their social media and

00:35:36.200 just nodding their head, whether they're in person or not.

00:35:38.900 And so why is it hard?

00:35:41.960 I mean, one is because our smartphones make it really hard.

00:35:46.840 They're very tempting.

00:35:48.020 It takes some of our attention away.

00:35:50.560 Even if we're not using them, you're thinking about them on the table there.

00:35:55.540 You're wondering if your phone just notified you or rang or whatever, or if your kids might

00:36:01.420 try to reach you or the school, et cetera.

00:36:03.100 So I think there's this expectation that we are going to be distracted, we are going to

00:36:08.640 be interrupted, and it doesn't let us settle into a 100% listening state.

00:36:15.400 And for the person who's doing the talking, they may not pay attention even to what they're

00:36:22.460 saying because they're just assuming that the other person is only going to listen to

00:36:25.660 half of what they're saying.

00:36:27.460 So I think another thing that gets in the way is that a lot of times people are multitasking

00:36:33.000 in that they're half listening and half thinking.

00:36:35.800 You're thinking about what you're going to say in response as soon as the person stops

00:36:39.000 finishing talking, or you're going to think about how to interrupt them.

00:36:42.400 So I think if you can just truly listen, and then when it's your turn to talk, monotask

00:36:51.600 that, speaking back to them.

00:36:53.840 And it can just change the cadence of the conversation, the amount that you hear.

00:36:58.680 And I think when people really feel listened to, they feel very valued, and you end up

00:37:04.060 having a closer friendship and relationship with them.

00:37:06.640 There are definitely some, you know, just kind of an unlimited number of opportunities

00:37:10.440 that we have in our daily lives to interact with other people and do a better job listening

00:37:14.300 to them.

00:37:14.940 If you really approach it as a monotask, I think you'll see the benefits very quickly.

00:37:20.000 So traveling is a time that a lot of people multitask, but you encourage people to monotask

00:37:25.680 on their commute.

00:37:26.500 What does that look like?

00:37:28.020 So I mentioned, you know, the prevalence of texting and driving earlier.

00:37:32.400 And that was originally where the idea for that chapter came from.

00:37:36.600 And just my own like, personal public service announcement, to be honest, I then broadened

00:37:42.620 it out, and it's called Getting There.

00:37:45.020 And the chapter really covers everything from commuting to traveling for pleasure.

00:37:49.360 And just how we've, yeah, we've become habitually accustomed to multitasking while we travel,

00:37:55.520 whether that's listening to an audio book while driving, or making a phone call, or, you

00:38:01.540 know, we're taking a train or plane, like doing something else during the time.

00:38:05.660 And if you identify which of those things are truly dangerous, if you're the driver, those

00:38:12.080 go in one bucket.

00:38:13.560 Other things that are just distractions and multitask that are maybe taking away from your

00:38:18.960 experience of traveling to a foreign country, or taking a trip you've never been on, or making

00:38:24.320 your commute more interesting.

00:38:25.320 Those things are in, you know, a separate bucket.

00:38:28.880 And again, like we've talked about before, it's about kind of unwinding all the multitasks

00:38:33.160 and giving your attention to one thing.

00:38:35.640 So if you gave your attention to the journey, can you notice more things out the window that

00:38:41.560 you've never seen before?

00:38:43.120 Can you plan out a new route to work to make it more interesting?

00:38:48.220 And then you can add the multitasks back.

00:38:51.100 So most people can effectively and safely listen to an audio book or a podcast on their commute.

00:38:58.240 And that's totally fine.

00:38:59.380 It's just about, you know, bringing some awareness to it.

00:39:02.140 There are some things that really do stress people out, and they'll make mistakes, like

00:39:05.680 trying to do their work on the train.

00:39:09.100 You know, it's just too distracting.

00:39:10.820 And they end up making mistakes.

00:39:12.380 It takes longer.

00:39:13.080 They get more stressed out, like we've talked about.

00:39:15.100 So it can just help kind of give yourself permission to do one thing at a time and figure

00:39:20.980 out whether you're capable of adding other tasks back later.

00:39:24.000 Yeah, I think monotasking traveling is a great way to exercise that muscle.

00:39:27.360 There's been times where I'll just not have the radio on.

00:39:30.120 It's a great time to exercise that muscle to not check your phone when you're at a stoplight

00:39:34.320 and just sit there and just be in the moment.

00:39:38.240 And I've done this every now.

00:39:39.100 I don't know.

00:39:39.440 You didn't advocate this in your book.

00:39:40.560 I've done this when I've been feeling, I don't know.

00:39:43.780 It's because I just wanted to try it.

00:39:45.020 Like I've tried monotasking flying on a plane.

00:39:47.280 So just like sitting on the plane and not reading or listening to a podcast, I can't

00:39:53.020 last that long because it's the most, it's pretty tedious.

00:39:55.260 So if you're feeling, if you really want to exercise those monotasking traveling muscles,

00:39:58.920 try just to sit on an airplane and look around you.

00:40:03.120 It's a great point.

00:40:04.880 I mean, it's hard.

00:40:05.980 It leads to boredom, right?

00:40:08.420 So why do we reach for our phones at stoplight or wherever?

00:40:11.920 Like, is it really going to be a life-altering message we have to see or respond to or something?

00:40:17.760 Or are we just bored?

00:40:18.780 And are we no longer capable of sitting with that boredom for a few seconds or a few minutes

00:40:23.120 or a few hours on the plane?

00:40:25.220 I think it's okay to be bored.

00:40:27.060 I think we've lost that ability.

00:40:30.000 And before smartphones, we had to be bored.

00:40:32.980 We had to like daydream or look for something interesting or strike up a conversation with

00:40:38.280 the person next to us.

00:40:39.780 I think those are all good things to do still.

00:40:42.360 So who knows where to lead, but it can all start with monotasking.

00:40:46.340 So another task you encourage people to monotask is their play, which seems kind of weird.

00:40:50.340 Like people would try to multitask while they're playing.

00:40:53.700 What stops us from monotasking or play?

00:40:56.900 If you've been to a live concert lately.

00:41:00.240 Yes, I went to one a couple months ago.

00:41:02.900 Yeah.

00:41:03.800 Yeah.

00:41:04.160 So, I mean, I know people haven't been going as much in recent years because of the pandemic.

00:41:08.680 But in general, if you go, like a lot of people have their phones out and they're taking pictures,

00:41:14.180 capturing video of the show.

00:41:15.800 Other people might be standing there like me.

00:41:18.240 You know, occasionally I'll catch myself if I go see a show thinking about work.

00:41:22.140 What happened that day?

00:41:23.040 What do I need to do tomorrow?

00:41:24.620 That's another form of multitasking.

00:41:27.020 So whether it's taking pictures and not really being present in the moment, enjoying it, or

00:41:33.200 thinking about something else and kind of being stressed while you're supposed to be having fun.

00:41:37.280 If you basically give yourself permission again to just immerse yourself in the play, then you'll be in the present moment.

00:41:46.920 You'll de-stress.

00:41:49.220 You'll have much better time.

00:41:50.680 You'll be connected with the people you're with.

00:41:53.240 And you'll truly be able to press that reset button again and be more productive the next day or whenever you're done with your play.

00:42:00.480 So this can apply to like going to the gym, going for a bike ride, kicking the ball around the park, taking your dog for a walk.

00:42:08.080 Anything, if you just do it with your full attention and catch yourself when you're maybe thinking of something else or doing two things at once,

00:42:16.580 scrolling your social media feed at the dog park, just, you know, it's totally fine.

00:42:21.800 Like acknowledge it, let it go, bring yourself back to the play.

00:42:25.780 And there are huge benefits to that.

00:42:27.420 We all need to play more.

00:42:28.320 No, I've noticed myself multitasking while playing, especially when I'm playing with my kids.

00:42:33.820 It's not like I'm doing something in front of them, but like I'm thinking about all the stuff I need to be doing, right?

00:42:39.540 Like all the to-dos around the house.

00:42:41.040 I got to call this repair person.

00:42:42.900 I've got this thing at work.

00:42:44.420 And I've catched myself like, I'm not really playing here.

00:42:47.240 I'm doing, I'm somewhere else.

00:42:48.840 I'm not actually here with my kid.

00:42:51.460 Yeah.

00:42:51.820 And, you know, our culture, a lot of people on social media, you know, will make it look like they're having this great life full of play and all this stuff.

00:43:02.380 But are they really monotasking their play?

00:43:05.380 No, those people are thinking about their social media photo post and caption and everything while they're ostensibly playing and they're asking somebody else to take the picture.

00:43:14.300 So we get the sense that, you know, there's this fear of missing out.

00:43:19.100 Everybody else is having this great life.

00:43:20.760 They all have this leisure time and go on these great trips and have these great cars and all that.

00:43:25.140 Those people are just as stressed out or more about the next post than you are.

00:43:31.000 So the place to be is right here, right now.

00:43:34.560 And whether you're doing your work or playing, do it with your full attention.

00:43:38.820 No, yeah, there's that, there's some quote about like work when you work, play when you play, don't focus about anything else.

00:43:46.560 Just because that'll just lead to, it stresses you out less when you do that, when you just focus on one thing at a time.

00:43:52.260 So another monotask is thinking, but like we've talked about thinking is one of those things you can do, you do all the time, right?

00:43:58.300 Like you can think when you're walking, you can think when you're listening to someone else talk about whatever.

00:44:02.740 You can think when you're listening to a podcast, why make set, set aside dedicated times where the only thing you are doing is thinking.

00:44:10.780 It has a lot to do with the fact that as human beings, we have these amazing capabilities to think and use our brains to do everything in life.

00:44:21.260 But do we take it for granted sometimes that we're just going to think in the background or that we can think of multiple things at once?

00:44:30.540 It's like how, what if we really could harness our capabilities, our cognitive abilities to do our work, to problem solve, to, you know, just build everything, do everything better in life really.

00:44:45.120 And a lot of times, you know, I'm, I can be an overthinker.

00:44:49.880 And so thinking, the thinking monotask is not necessarily like fixate your brain on one thing and do it.

00:45:00.040 It's more just bring your full attention, your full presence to when you are thinking and when you need to think in order to do the best work possible and to live life really well.

00:45:10.740 And sometimes you have to go for a walk or go play in order for that creative idea to pop into your head.

00:45:19.840 So it's not always going to come from giving 100% of your attention to thinking.

00:45:24.580 I think people can relate to that and creatives like you don't always have your best idea when you're trying to come up with your best idea.

00:45:30.240 It'll pop into your mind in a dream or in the shower.

00:45:33.160 And I think monotasking in general is not just about the task that you're doing.

00:45:42.480 It's about monotasking around that task.

00:45:46.960 So if you figure out, you know, I do my best work when I go for a bike ride, I come up with my best creative ideas or I get, you know, going on trips really inspires me to bring back ideas at home to put to work.

00:45:59.560 If you monotask around that, you observe yourself and when you do your best thinking, then you can do a better job when you actually do sit down at your desk or wherever you decide to do your deep work to, you know, quote, reference the Cal Newport book again.

00:46:13.320 Well, Thatcher, this has been a great conversation.

00:46:14.820 Is there some place people can go to learn more about the book and your work?

00:46:17.980 So I create a website that's basically a companion to the book, The 12 Monotask.

00:46:22.660 So if you go to monotasking.tips, T-I-P-S, the website ends in tips, not .com, you can order the book from there.

00:46:31.680 You can basically find all the local bookstores that sell it.

00:46:34.000 It's available on Amazon as well.

00:46:35.960 The book is called The 12 Monotask, Do One Thing at a Time to Do Everything Better.

00:46:40.640 And I'm reachable through the website and through my own site, thatcherwine.com and also through juniperbooks.com.

00:46:48.380 Fantastic.

00:46:48.980 Well, Thatcher Wine, thanks for your time.

00:46:50.020 It's been a pleasure.

00:46:51.120 Thanks, Brad.

00:46:51.660 Yeah, appreciate it.

00:46:52.660 Enjoyed our conversation.

00:46:54.400 My guest, it was Thatcher Wine.

00:46:55.620 He's the author of the book, The 12 Monotask.

00:46:57.580 It's available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere.

00:46:59.860 You can find more information about the book at his website, monotasking.tips.

00:47:03.720 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash monotask.

00:47:06.540 We find links to resources where we delve deeper into this topic.

00:47:16.200 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

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The Art of Manliness - January 05, 2022

Become a Focused Monotasker

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