The unexpected path to serenity

Photo by Daniel J. Schwarz on Unsplash

A welcome side effect of my recent Apple Watch experiment has been making more time for reading books. This past week I finished Michael Easter’s latest book Scarcity Brain and also listened to his conversation about the book with Russ Roberts on EconTalk – one of my favorite podcasts.

Towards the end of their conversation, Russ made a comment that stopped me in my tracks.

“It’s hard to find serenity without slowing down.”

Take a minute to really let that one soak in.

It’s easy to look at and appreciate all of the technological advances we’ve made in the past century and how those advances have made us all better multitaskers. 

But if we’re not careful, we tend to gloss over how our constantly “on” society is stressing us all out. So how do we get better at slowing down in our increasingly sped up world?

I personally think the answer can be found in a return to single-tasking.

While it’s not possible to do a single task at all times, we can start paying more attention to our…well…attention. The more we do, the more we start to realize you don’t actually want to be multitasking in the first place!

One way to build the habit of slowing down is to start regularly asking yourself…

Am I multitasking or single-tasking right now?

Asking this question regularly raises our awareness of the present moment. And when we find ourselves living in the present, the past seems to fade away and the future can wait.

The more you slow down and the more you practice being intentional about single-tasking, the more likely you are to find a sense of serenity waiting at your door.