How often do you shift gears in life?

Man, I am so glad you don't ride the clutch, Tink!  And that there are so many opportunities (er, um, crises?) in which to jiggle your foot and move into 2nd or 3rd or sometimes down to reverse.  You've just brought back memories of the first time i had to drive a clutch on steep hills because everyone else in the car was drunk.  And i probably wasn't that sober…it was back in college days.  And the car is lurching and screaming and bolting and stalling, god knows how we made it home.  but later we got a stick shift and i actually learned how to shift.  am still learning, all these years later.

“I don't multitask. I don't think multitasking is actually possible, it's just barely paying attention to too many things, so I prefer to unitask and shift gears.”  I recently wrote a rant about my dislike for so-called multi-tasking.  I love what you have said here! 

Our minds were thinking along similar lines with today's post as well.  I actually posted a photograph of my car and said that like it, I have to shift gears all the time. 

I LOVE that you sat down and thought this all out.  Love it, love it.  And laughing about that “Automatic transmission”.  Which is what I'm driving these days.  Hmmm…maybe should go back to a clutch….

I gave my stick shift car to my daughter after I was having problems with my hip. Now that I have a new hip….I love when I get a chance to zip around and shift gears. Although, it's not so much fun when I'm sipping on my coffee.

“I don't multitask. I don't think multitasking is actually possible, it's just barely paying attention to too many things, so I prefer to unitask and shift gears.”
 
This thought really caught my attention Jeannie.  I know it's true for me.  When I have multiple things to do, like cleaning the entire house, I only focus on the one thing I'm cleaning right now and let the flow carry me from room to room.

 

oh how i'd like to convince my boss that multi-tasking isn't really efficient, or enjoyable, or realistic or … . shall i introduce him to gaia?!

I don't think it is possible to consciously multi task, and it is possible for the body to multitask - it does it all the time - think about it.   You go for a run, and start consciously thinking about something else - say the shape of a cloud.  While you are consciously cloud thinking, your body is lifting feet up and down, avoiding potholes and obstacles, breathing, keeping balance, …..

I got fined at Jaycees some years ago for being seen driving down the road (using my knee on the steering wheel, a shaver in my left hand, and a cell phone in my right hand).   My eyes were on the road, and my body was using them, my conscious was talking on the phone.  
Consciously I was talking, and my body was multi taking many things.
Our brains have over 20 different processing centres, and we can do a lot.

One needs to train the mind/body well, then leave it to it.
I have driven over a million miles, and have at times gone an hour without being able to recall anything of that part of the journey - my consciousness being elsewhere - and me being confident that the body would have bought me back had I been needed.
So it is a sort of yes and no thing - yes – consciously we can only do one thing at a time, and in reality, our bodies do many things for us all the time that we are barely (if at all) conscious of.  Our bodies are amazing multitasking machines.  It is possible to train them to do very complex tasks without conscious input.
Some people don't like that, and that doesn't change reality.

Think about changing gears, all the actions that are involved.   If we try and do it consciously, we screw it up.  The secret is to teach the body how, then trust it, and just tell the body change and take the consciousness somewhere else.
I will never forget my flying instructor telling me - anytime the aeroplane gets anyplace that your mind wasn't at least a minute and a half before - you are in trouble.  Kind like that with most things - driving included.

I washed my face in the bathroom a minute ago.  It reminded me of an early morning ablution in a crystal clear mountain stream.  Above 5000' of course.  Yeah, camping.

And 'shifty' guy that I am I have to admit I'm smitten by those snazzy paddle shifting double-clutch gearboxes Ferrari popularized in F1 but which were really invented by Renault waaaay back in the 1970's.  Imagine a 50ms manumatic popping you through life's more delicate and nuanced situations.

Speaking of multitasking, I'm sitting here breathing and typing and I just farted.  Does that all count toward multitasking?

I'll be back (Gaia) soon. 

oh Albert! so delighted to hear you are coming back. Love you, love you tink

oh ho – multitasking.  one of my favorite subjects since I work in an emergency communications center and I have been attempting to help new folks understand this concept and become successful, compassionate, efficient calltakers and dispatchers for years now. 

I can type, listen, think, decide and talk, sometimes all at the same time, though I'd prefer not to have to do that many things at once.  Often I am the only person in the room responsible for several radio channels & whichever phone lines are ringing as well as keeping an eye on the jail monitors to see that nothing is amiss there.  I partially agree that we cannot give our entire attention to more than one thing as a time, but I disagree with the statement that multitasking is impossible.  I really agree with some of ted's points.  Even in my personal life I enjoy a certain kind of multitasking - listening to music, breathing and reading all at the same time.  :-)  

I would say that listeing and typing at the same time is a true kind of multitasking and we have a foot pedal for radio transmitting and headsets to free our hands for typing so we can do just that.  But much of the rest of what we do is really fast prioritization.  We have to learn to be aware of the big picture, the big sound picture, if you will.  In some ways, working the radios can be easier, because the Officers are trained to give and receive information in a certain systematized way, which helps us become hyper alert if something is “hinky” or out of the usual.  In some ways, working the phones can be easier, because you can put the caller on hold while you do your next task, whereas the radio doesn't wait for you to be “ready” to listen to it.  it doesn't ring before the information starts coming in.  we also have to listen for incoming computer messages from the Colorado Crime Information Center or the National Crime Information Center and we have to be alert to what our partner is doing, even if we are taking a 911 call.  To help with all of this, we tune our ears to certain types of sounds and certain words.  for instance, if my work partner needs my immediate, urgent attention he or she will say my name in a certain tone of voice.  if the jail is calling me on their own dedicated channel to ask me to open a door, they call me 'master control” and identify themself.  If a field unit needs my attention on any of their channels they must call for “aspen” and identify themself.  if my partner enters a call into our computer aided dispatch system, certain types of calls initiate different computer noise alerts.  Also, certain phone lines have different ring tones than others, 911 lines sound sort of like sirens and admin lines sound more relaxed and the line from the airport tower has it's very own sound that gets my adrenaline pumping on the very first ring.  we learn to prioritize.  we learn that saving a life - meaning giving priority to an urgent ambulance call or a structure fire or a violent crime in progress - is more important than anything else, but what if I have a crime in progress, a man having a heart attack and a structure fire all at the same time– do one thing at a time– QUICKLY.  and get help if it's available.  it is changing gears, lightning fast, and remembering to go back to the thing you were doing when you were interupted. 

being aware of all of those sounds and what they mean is tricky to teach someone.  some people automatically “get” it.  others really, truly need to do one thing at a time, think everything through to it's conclusion and simply cannot make a decision on the fly, perhaps without all the variables clearly defined.  some people focus so completely on the one phone call that they don't hear that the phone is still ringing and the jail nees a door opened and a flight for life helicopter needs to talk to them on the radio. those people don't work here.  they works someplace quiet where they can completely finish one task before being asked to do the next one.  (where in life is that possible??)

we say that someone who can change gears quickly, type and talk or type and listen at the same time, prioritize QUICKLY, and go back to what they were doing before they were interupted (sometimes doing one task I'm interupted by another and then another and another and I have to go back and finish them in reverse order – like putting nesting dolls back together?) –we call those folks good multitaskers, because it's easier than saying this whole paragraph. 

a good “multi-tasker” must also be an incredibly good “active listener”, meaning that they have to be very good at giving the micro task they are doing, their active attention.  the Officer on the radio may only have the opportunity to ask for help and give his location once.  the 911 caller may only say the address once and then hang up, never to be recontacted by phone.  we may only get the opportunity to hear a very important piece of information once, so we have to be really listening.  if I have quiet moment and I'm daydreaming or reading the newspaper or entering some data – I MUST leave that “neutral space” for “listening overdrive” immediately.  I cannot continue to ponder the sentence I was just typing or I might not really hear what the caller is saying. 

so…  shifting gears, lightning fast, would really be a better description of that part of the multitasking equation. 

hmmm.  I've been interupted about, oh, say, 179 times since I started typing this.

I do want to say that a work life of noise and sound clutter and lightning fast decisions without enough information has given me a profound appreciation for silence and savoring the slowness of some things and it has taught me the value of giving my undivided attention to my loved ones.  one of my least favorite things to do is to talk to a friend or family member on the phone while I am at work, because I cannot give them my complete attention and I would prefer not to have to interupt them.

JESS had posted something the other day about a Big Mind session she had attended and she was talking about how we can be two sides of the same clothes pin with our heads deciding which way we will respond in each moment.  I am an excellent multitasking, gear shifting, prioritizing, hyper alert and oriented, master of efficiency at work.  I interupt and say “stand by” and “please hold” and “do you have an emergency?”  in a certain tone of voice that brooks no nonsense.  but at home, I savor the moments, I give certain tasks my relaxed, undivided unhurried attention.  I dawdle when hiking.  I stop to make photographs during bike rides so many times that it doubles the time it takes to get somewhere.  I am, so often, the last one to rise from savasana after a yoga class.  I am a “sleep whore” as some of my friends call it.  I dislike hurrying.  I dislike being rushed.  I love to dream and to day dream.  I can spend hours in a bathtub– doing absolutely nothing useful.

so – just leaving work every day, that's shifting gears, isn't it??  I think my bus ride to and from work is often the clutch time, the neutral place time.  I think it's helpful to use the clutch properly, but yes, not to ride it.  there were a few years where I had a really hard time switching from work to home and back again.  i think yoga and meditation have helped with that problem. 

and prius es– plural prius– yep.  I once drove one to a training and got so fascinated by the little panel that tells how much gas mileage you are getting and how much battery charge you have and all of that– that I totally missed my exit from the highway and ended up way in the middle of nowhere.   perhaps the novelty wears off after awhile??  if not, I'd better not ever get one.  :-) 

hey hi albert!  aren't you the lucky one.  house camping with those girls and the menagerie???  :-)

oh and bob - I think that thinking about my working place like a flowing river or sounds with eddies and currents might be a fun exercise for me, instead of thinking of it as a wild rumpusy cacophony of sound. 

lil – it is indeed possible to make peace with a high pressure workplace – you find your own peace inside, no matter what everything else outside is doing.  you'll find it.  :-) 

and maze – I love auto transmission for just that reason.  I like let the car doing the shifting thinking so I can listen to the radio and sip some coffee and not have to engage all my limbs while driving.  :-)  I'd absolutely LOVE one of those cars like “Knight Rider”.  remember that silly show from the 80's?