By Books Author Denise Turney

If you’re like many people, you could be experiencing a lingering pull to switch gears and Slow down. On the other hand, you might be conflicted. After all, you could have grown up with the belief that working nearly nonstop and juggling several tasks at once was the single way to step into a successful career or a deeply satisfying lifestyle. But, what if those work-work-work and juggle-tasks beliefs are wrong?

Speeding Up Your Life’s Pace

To explore this idea further, here are two questions. To begin, was there ever a time when you were encouraged to “multi-task”? Has someone pushed you to “forget sleep and get as much done as fast as possible?” If this has happened to you, there likely were rewards associated with these life choices.

Among those rewards are: when you multi-task, you get a lot more done in less time; people who sleep less and work longer hours are more successful and working fast and hard is the path to fulfillment. Let someone who you think is successful espouse these ideas and you might immediately accept that living fast, nearly absent brakes, is your best option if you want to realize your dreams.

I wasn’t introduced to those concepts until I was in my 30s. Back then, I was working for a major, global firm. A senior business leader told me that I had to “learn how to multi-task.” Because I aligned this person’s corporate title with wisdom and “knowing what’s best”, I put my head down and focused on multi-tasking.

Multi-Tasking Facts

An outcome of this effort was that my work hours got longer. Soon, I was telling myself that I didn’t have time to stop working long enough to go to the bathroom, let alone lunch. “Multi-task, multi-task,” I kept hearing. And, again, the Benefit was that multi-tasking was the best way to get more work done. This, in turn, could lead to promotions, salary increases and multi-taskers generating more product and service sales should they be entrepreneurs.

Years later, was I ever surprised to hear that multi-tasking is actually not possible for many people. The brain often cannot focus on two activities with clarity at the same time. Cleveland Clinic shares that, “We’re really wired to be monotaskers, meaning that our brains can only focus on one task at a time.” Neurologist Cynthia Kabu went on to share in the Cleveland Clinic article that, “When we think we’re Multitasking, most often we aren’t really doing two things at once, but instead, we’re doing individual actions in rapid succession, or task-switching.”¹

Yet, that’s not all. Not only can your brain often not multi-task, your brain might make mistakes as you switch from opposite types of tasks. In particular, this could happen while you’re trying to multi-task while working on complex tasks.

Exploring New Ways of Living

Even if you’re introduction to multi-tasking and working tirelessly is familiar with mine, you might benefit from exploring different ways of approaching work. Because your work practices might overflow into your personal life, your personal relationships might gain if you switch gears and slow down.

Fortunately, the past two years have created situations that have seemingly forced many to look at their life, including their work life, differently. Gone for many, perhaps even you, are the days when you’ll convince yourself that you have no options for how to work. COVID19 also demonstrated how effective people can work from home or from another remote location.

Challenges, especially for working mothers, of juggling and multi-tasking job responsibilities, relationships and children were spotlighted. End result was millions of women existing the workforce. If there ever was a push to “slow down”, that was one of those pushes.

Benefits of Slowing Down

Hence, one of the leading reasons to slow down is to live in balance. Slow down to get your life off the spin cycle. As you once may have thought that working non-stop and multi-tasking offered benefits, you might be happy to learn that slowing down comes with benefits too. In fact, among the benefits gained from living a slower life are:

• Mindfulness – As you slow down your life, you might become more present. You might become more aware of your thoughts and emotions.
• Clarity – Becoming more mindful can yield clarity. Instead of feeling conflicted and overwhelmed, “knowing what to do now” might arise within you more. This, in turn, could lead to better decisions and a more satisfying life.
• Improved Relationships – The better you feel, the better you may treat the people in your life. Another choice that you might make is to decide to actively listen to people who you’re communicating with.
• Less Stress – When you slow down your life, you might take in deeper breaths without even thinking about doing so. This could improve your respiratory system. It could also help stabilize your blood pressure and reduce stress.

More Benefits of Slowing Down

• Health Improvement – Should you decide to slow down, you might actually stop and just eat while you’re dining. Doesn’t matter if you’re dining alone at home or at a restaurant with friends or relatives. Focusing on eating alone could decrease the times that you binge eat or eat simply to rid yourself of an emotion.
• Appreciation – Your internal appreciation meter could skyrocket after you slow down. In addition to appreciating your health, relationships, talents and environment, you might start to appreciate natural sounds around you. These sounds might have gone completely unnoticed by you while you were operating at a brutally fast pace.
• Self-Esteem – Slowing down may help you to recognize progress that you have made. For the first time in a long time, you might actually see just how much progress you’ve made regarding parenting, a project, communication, your finances and your overall health.

Notice Your Progress

Admittedly, it might take a few attempts to slow down. Howbeit, as you start to notice benefits associated with living at a slower pace, you might choose to expand the practice across all areas of your life. And, instead of perceiving living at a fast pace as proof that you’re living a “good life”, you might start to associate living a “good life” with the quality of your relationships.

Here’s another hidden advantage associated with slowing down. Instead of multi-tasking, you might start working in teams more. You also might value everyday experiences that you have which could lead to deeper satisfaction.

Resources:

1. Why Multitasking Doesn’t Work – Cleveland Clinic

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