Bubble Yum, Sunflower Seeds, and My Addiction to Multitasking
By: Paul Shirley
Tags: Human Performance, Productivity, Focus, Transitions, Multitasking

Our poor brains. They are overwhelmed. There are so many texts to read, so many posts to make, and so many podcasts to listen to.

We know the answer. We have to stop. We have to carve out time — time to focus, time to concentrate, time to connect to ourselves and to the things we care about.

So why don’t we?

I found a clue. All it took was a 1,500-mile drive from San Francisco to Denver, part of a personal relocation project that has lasted several months and many thousands of miles.

I love long drives as they give me a chance to think about my life, make connections, and brainstorm on the things I’m working on. These thoughts, connections, and ideas are accompanied by the usual road-trip trappings: music, phone calls, podcasts, snacks, and the sort of snobbish sparkling waters I like to buy at the Love’s Travel Stops that have become my favorite.

At one of these Love’s, I bought the aforementioned snobby water plus two more things: sunflower seeds (Chile Limon flavor) and Bubble Yum (Strawberry-Watermelon).

I was getting drowsy and thought the act of eating sunflower seeds or chewing gum would help me stay alert. Then I got back into my car, hooked up my phone, and tore into the sunflower seeds just as I dialed up a new album on the ancient iPod attached to my car’s stereo. A couple of miles down the road, I realized: I wasn’t doing the thing I so love. I wasn’t allowing my brain to relax and create the necessary room for that combination of spacing-out and diving-in that leads to deeper connections and revelations.

Instead, I was filling my brain — and my time — with as many things as I could. I was piling stimulus on top of stimulus, just like we all do. Except, instead of texts on top of emails on top of Instagram posts, I was piling drinks on top of snacks on top of the latest episode of Meghan Daum’s (excellent) podcast.

So I made a decision: I would allow myself to do only one thing while I drove. Sunflower seeds. Or music. Or gum.

And here’s the part that I think is interesting — the clue. When I decided to do this, I got nervous. There were so many things I could be doing, and I was going to just be doing one?! This was insane!

I soldiered through. Sunflower seeds. Then stop. A phone call. Then stop. An album. Then stop. A piece of gum. Then throw it out the window when it lost its taste. (Just as I recalled from childhood, this didn’t take long.)

I wasn’t perfect. I kept wanting to add things to the mix. Oh I can chew sunflower seeds AND listen to music, can’t I?

It’s also not like I necessarily had any grand revelations, earth-shattering ideas, or came to any revolutionary plans. And I spilled my sunflower seed spit cup on myself, which was gross. However, I did relax. I was able to let go of that sense that I needed to be doing 57 things at once. And then I was able to breathe, to think, and to enjoy that scenery and maybe a good idea or two.

So, why was it so hard to settle into doing one thing at a time? More important: why did I feel so nervous about even trying?

When I got to my next stop (Reno), I did some research. Here’s a piece that explained what was happening to me: we can train our brains to respond to cortisol, the so-called stress hormone, with dopamine.

I liked this passage:

Research shows that cortisol, known as the stress hormone, can make a region in the brain called the nucleus accumbens become more sensitive to dopamine, a neurotransmitter that gives us the feeling of pleasure and satisfaction. For Type A people like myself, embracing fast-paced environments can lend itself to unchecked cortisol levels, which, if prolonged, can be a problem. Picture a work environment marked by the constant need to achieve something under stressful circumstances. If this sounds like your daily routine, chances are that your chronically stressed out brain can become dependent on the euphoric release of dopamine. In other words, stress, as some experts put it, can turn into addiction.

This is why I felt that anxiety at the prospect of doing one thing at a time on my road trip. It’s the same anxiety many of us feel when we’re faced with the job of concentrating on only one thing: we’re addicted to the stress of trying to multitask. And just like any addict, our brains resist anything that keeps us from a fix.

The key to victory over this addiction is to send some awareness to this feeling. Understand it. Watch it. View it. And then, when it’s tempting to feel guilty about it, do the opposite. See that it is normal and that you are not weird. Then turn off your phone. Close your email client. Take three deep breaths. Put on a song you like. Close your eyes for ten seconds. Eat some sunflower seeds. Or some Bubble Yum.

Then launch into that one thing you need to focus on: 20 minutes on a business plan, 40 minutes of studying, or 5 minutes of meditation.

I’ll bet that you’ll come out the other side seeing the hills, the trees, the connections, the good ideas, the bad ideas, and a whole lot more.