On single-tasking and creating habits after 30 days

Just recently I’ve been creating a habit of single-tasking based on Leo Babauta book “The Power of Less”. I’ve been following up on the progress of creating a habit day-by-day in the comments below the original post. So what are my thoughts after the period of 30 days?

About the single-tasking.

After years of intensive context-switching while at work I must say that single-tasking was an incredible discovery. I’m not kidding, it really kicked things off. Finally I’m actually doing work at work- I’m following up with customers in time because I have time and attention to do it, I remember things because I take notes before switching to different tasks, I do what I have committed for because I don’t check my personal email every 5 minutes or spend time on flickr because I have lost the focus and wandered there by accident. I even started some personal project which I spent some time on every day. (More about it in few months).

I must say that my superiors have also noticed improved performance which was a big encouragement to keep up the good work. Yes, for those who would rather not work- being able to do more work may sound like a bad idea, but where I work- one can get fired if his performance graph lingers below the line for too long. That being said, I love my work, so being able to do more makes me happier.

When it comes to single-tasking while not at work, I’m still not sure where will that get me. I don’t find myself happier if I only eat when I eat yet, nor when I don’t listen to the music or audiobooks while driving. But I’ll keep practicing and see where will that get me. Who knows, maybe one day eating, showering, driving et al will become my meditation.

About the method of creating habits.

In a nutshell, I think it rocks. These 30 days just fly by and if you’re not worried to much that you don’t do 20 other things you’d rather do instead of reporting the progress on single habit you’re creating, you’re good to go. And btw, you shouldn’t worry about these 20 things, you can’t do them all at once anyway.

I think it is commitment plays a vital role here- even if that’s on a blog few people read. I must admit that the first day after a period of 30 days I was multi-tasking like crazy- not sure if the fact there was more work than usually had anything to do with it, but I was literraly writing a message on IRC while reading some email while listening to the phone conference while drinking coffee. And I didn’t even try to stop myself, I can’t believe this was happening. But I’m getting back on track so I think it was just a stupid “I’m free!” thingy. I hope I will get better at this in time. If not, I’ll let you know.

Lessons I learned.

So what where the great findings during these 30 days of single-tasking. I think they will vary a lot from person to person, but here’s what helped for me:

• Turn off distracting notifications (think growl, skype notifications, email notifications, twitter etc.)
• Turn off email notifications (yes, ditto, but you really have to do it).
• Turn off email when working on a task. Never use email as a Todo manager.
• Check email, twitter, flickr [,you name it] once, the later the better. I personally check them not earlier than 2am and only when everything else is done.
• Take notes before switching between the tasks
• Always have current task active in the task manager
• If you lost focus, take it easy – take a breath, think what you were just doing and gently bring yourself back to that task. Check your todo manager – you may well have notes on what you were doing lately.
• Take notes during conference calls.
• Even if you’re not doing what you’re supposted to- take it easy and just be aware of it. Or better- try to bring yourself back gently.
• Think, read, listen about your goal often- always be aware of it.
• Company IM is evil.

Overall, I think there’s a lot to do to become even better at focus like reducing all that noise- clutter on your desk and computer desktop, mess in your drawers, distractions on the wall infront of you etc. I’ll keep you updated with whatever I do to get closter to perfect focus.