Pause and breathe

There is always something to do in a day. If you want to, you can find tonnes of things to keep you occupied – doing your actual work being a fundamental one.

But the thing is, nowadays, we lack the will to do pretty much anything.

We may blame it on languishing, the phenomenon of our times. But it may also be due to a series of reasons.

Life’s hectic rhythms sometimes result in us being too exhausted to be productive. And we realise that if we pressure ourselves, whatever we deliver will not be up to our own high standards. Perhaps that is why we prefer to do anything else, other than our obligations. And that anything else is often nothing. (Unless binging on TV series and Netflix counts as something).

We need days off. If anything to clear our minds and actually relax. Those moments we spent as kids just lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling, daydreaming; well, they were actually priceless. Now, we seem to be lacking time for a proper meal, let alone for an instance of losing ourselves in space.

But it is necessary to breathe. To hit pause and do nothing, simply so we can get back on track of actually doing all the things that we’re used to filling our days with.

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Multitasking alert

People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who are also into multitasking can relate to how easily it is to be constantly on edge about everything, yet also completely indifferent at the same time. It’s a paradox, indeed. But it also happens.

When you have too much to do, it is much easier to decide to do absolutely nothing.

Until that switch clicks inside you and you become determined to put things into order. That’s the OCD acting out – you get organized, and suddenly also very productive.

The problem with multitasking, however, is that you think you’re doing a lot of things at once, when in essence, you’re occupying yourself with many small things, none of which you finish. It’s like opening tens of tabs on many browsers simultaneously, but actually reading none.

This mentality of wanting to be too busy all the time has actually made us so alert, rather so on edge, that it takes the slightest of things at times to make us erupt.

We’ve created a society where we’re constantly agitated without knowing why and we lash out on the wrong people, at the wrong time, and for the wrong reasons.

What if we tried to put things into order to begin with – without opening up so many tabs? Let’s prioritise things – yes, this is also an OCD thing: lists. But there is an innate satisfaction with seeing that you’re actually getting things done. And in a much calmer and refined way.

“Multitasking makes us feel productive. Single-tasking makes us actually productive”.

Also part of Your Daily Writing Prompt

Here’s your chance

©Jeff Arnold

“You’ve always wondered what you’d do if you had time and were at home”.

“Well, here’s your chance”.

She opened the door. His home-office was rearranged so that his desk was right beneath the window looking into the back garden. There was an old typewriter strategically placed in the middle. He had told her of how the dream of becoming a writer began when he first saw his grandfather typing on one of these. But dreams always got delayed due to some other priority.

“After all,” she added, “when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote King Lear”.

Also part of Friday Fictioneers