back home: just one thing

So we are back home for a while.
We've been camping with friends.
The kids played. The adults generally did as little as possible.

And the new year has begun and I have a few things nudging my brain.
One of them is monotasking.
You see I decided to leave my chaotic mind back in 2010.
It didn't make it through the gates of the new year.
So I'm committed to doing one thing at a time as much as possible, sticking with it and completing it.
That's it.

I used to pride myself on my ability as a multitasker but somewhere between babies and the present moment the ability severly slipped.
Last year was a shocker. I had become the classic "start something at one end of the house and 15 minutes later, have 5 different half finished jobs in a trail behind me" type.
Apart from being ineffective, it was infuriating and unhelpful.

And so right now this is my daily practise.
One thing at a time.
Naming it and deciding what 'completed' looks like helps.
On arriving home, we took down the Christmas decorations. All the decorations in the box was 'completed' for me for that day. Dealing with the box was the next step.
Mindfulness and repeated refocusing is also helpful when 'leakage' occurs; when other tasks leak into the one you are focused on. Clearing the Christmas decorations also meant being confronted with the all the creative projects that had begun to accumulate under the Christmas table. Then there was the vacuuming and the possible sorting of boardgames.

One thing at a time.
It feels unbelievably satisfying to have a trail of fully completed tasks behind me come the end of the day.
I like the chunking of time that occurs.
I like feeling more present in my action.
I like arriving at each full stop.