In reading and listening and thinking through all of the materials and ideas this week (as well as reading as many of the eJournal posts as possible), I have come to a key observation about myself -- and it relates to this quote from the material on attention management:

"Multitaskers picture themselves as expert jugglers, astounding their audience by keeping five balls in the air with grace, ease, a smile, and a wink.  In reality, multitaskers are more like unskilled, amateur plate spinners, getting one plate spinning, then another and another, then frantically racing from one to the next (ignoring the others) while at any moment one."

While this is not true of me all the time, it is true of me too much of the time.  And in working through -- even wrestling with -- the material on attention/time management/focus this week, I began to ask myself if my affinity for multi-tasking and "being busy" hasn't somehow inadvertently become a "badge of honor" and even one of my "core values" of sorts -- almost part of my identity.  Do I derive some false sense of importance from "being busy" and focusing on quantity, even at the expense of quality/effectiveness?  Lots of questions to work through on that front for sure.

In the meantime, I am certainly starting to put into practice some of the ideas, tools, and tips that were recommended in the materials and suggested by others in the eJournal. All very good and important changes for sure.  But if I know myself, the hard work for me will not be the work of "addition" -- learning new things, taking on a new approach, or implementing new habits and behaviors.  The hard work for me will be the painful work of "subtraction" -- un-learning old things that I had convinced myself actually were true, giving up old habits and behaviors that "worked for me" and had become familiar and comfortable, and finally discarding a part of myself that had become an unhealthy (and unproductive) "badge of honor," even if others seemingly "marveled" at it from time to time.

This spotlight on attention/time management/focus has been very humbling and challenging.  But here's to not getting any stupider, at least due to my continued excessive multi-tasking and constant distractions...although I am really second guessing what I am going to use my "smart" watch for now that it won't flash, beep, buzz, and ding at me any more.  Maybe I will just use it to tell time.

Michael Monroe