Focusing On One Thing at a Time
Yesterday a high powered lawyer with an overflowing inbox told me about a beautiful moment. Well, a three-hour moment. During her career she took an interlude to study art. An assignment was to stare at a single Picasso for three hours. She said, "Doing just that? It was bliss!" Today a busy surgeon friend told me her medical school dean gave Grand Rounds and said, "We want to build an orchestra. Don't be pretty good at 4 things. Do one thing really, really well."
"We were not trained that way," my friend said, "but what a concept!"
Could single focus make for fully engaged clinicians, buoyant people and a better day? Might such a method conjure calm and enrich experience, whether it is a conversation, task or treatment? What of the pings, rings and dopamine rushes that we have come to know and love so well? Hard to just say no or relinquish the requisite snap-to, given our reality. Can't just push the message pile-up away. Yet, it appears that we produce, deliver and somehow, devolve. Or some of us, anyway. Here is a piece that lets us take note and consider the pros and cons of single focus.
https://hbr.org/2015/01/the-pros-and-cons-of-doing-one-thing-at-a-time
Focus photo info: Creative Commons Michael Dales|Focus| Image Source: www.flickr.com |Taken 12/30/2011