monotasking

Explore "monotasking" with insightful episodes like "Become a Focused Monotasker", "#449 - Thatcher Wine - Multitasking Is Killing Your Productivity", "Achieve More Bliss By Monotasking w/ Thatcher Wine" and "Become a Focused Monotasker" from podcasts like ""The Art of Manliness", "Modern Wisdom", "THE ED MYLETT SHOW" and "The Art of Manliness"" and more!

Episodes (4)

Become a Focused Monotasker

Writing an email while on a Zoom call. Talking on the phone while walking. Scrolling through social media while watching a movie.

In both our work and our play, we’re all doing more and more multitasking. Doing two things at once makes us feel as if we’re more efficient and getting more done.

But my guest would say that all this task juggling actually makes us less productive, while diminishing the quality of our work and stressing our minds, and that we’d be better off curbing our multitasking in favor of monotasking. His name is Thatcher Wine and he’s the author of The Twelve Monotasks: Do One Thing at a Time to Do Everything Better. Today on the show, Thatcher explains the illusions around multitasking and the benefits of monotasking — that is, bringing our full focus to a single task at a time. We discuss why reading is a foundational part of becoming a monotasker, and then get into some of the other activities Thatcher recommends monotasking, including walking, listening, traveling/commuting, and thinking. Thatcher argues that doing things like listening to a podcast while cleaning your house isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but that you may want to try stripping everything away from your daily tasks except the primary tasks themselves to observe the resulting effect and to strengthen your “monotasking muscles” and rebuild your attention span. Once you’ve experimented with doing a task alone, you can then decide to layer back in the second activity, or, maybe decide you actually liked giving it your all.

Resources Related to the Podcast

AoM podcast episodes with Cal Newport on Deep Work and Digital Minimalism
AoM podcast with Oliver Burkeman on Time Management for Mortals
AoM podcast with Nicolas Carr on how the internet affects our minds and attention
AoM series on how to improve your listening
AoM article on the benefits of being fully present
AoM article on working when you work, and playing when you play

Connect With Thatcher Wine

enMay 01, 2023

#449 - Thatcher Wine - Multitasking Is Killing Your Productivity

Thatcher Wine is professional book curator, founder of Juniper Books and an author. Multi-tasking will make you less effective, less productive, less happy and more prone to making errors in work and life. The question of why we're all so tempted to do it and how we can stop seems an obvious next step. Expect to learn whether multi-tasking is just a modern phenomenon, how monotasking can result in more work being done at a higher quality, how technology has permanently changed the landscape for attention, the usefulness of walking between tasks, why tasks can get more difficult before they get easier again and much more... Sponsors: Join the Modern Wisdom Community to connect with me & other listeners - https://modernwisdom.locals.com/ Learn how to skip college and get Praxis’ free book on the success mindset at https://discoverpraxis.com/modernwisdom/ (discount automatically applied) Get 20% discount on everything from Lucy at https://uk.lucy.co/ (UK) or https://lucy.co/ (US) (use code: MW20) Get 5 Free Travel Packs, Free Liquid Vitamin D and Free Shipping from Athletic Greens at https://athleticgreens.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Extra Stuff: Buy The 12 Monotasks - https://amzn.to/3vXOZ8Z Follow Thatcher on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thatcherwine Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

enMarch 19, 2022

Achieve More Bliss By Monotasking w/ Thatcher Wine

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by your to-do list? Do you approach each day a certain amount of angst because of stress that's gnawing at you? This week’s guest is going to UNLOCK some important insights for you. My guest, THATCHER WINE, is going to dig into many of the things I’ve been talking about and marry it to a proven strategy that will DRAMATICALLY INCREASE what you can accomplish this year. That strategy is MONOTASKING. As you can guess, it’s a complete departure from MULTITASKING which you're already well aware of. You’ll get stuff done by multitasking, but the TRUTH is… Multitasking teaches you how to be BUSY. Monotasking teaches you how to be PRODUCTIVE. Understand the difference? Thatcher Wine is a successful entrepreneur, author, and founder/CEO of JUNIPER BOOKS that specializes in custom curated libraries and designing special edition book sets. Since launching it 20 years ago, he’s developed a devoted Instagram following and has customers in 60 countries, including GWENETH PALTROW, who hired him to curate her book collection in 2019. Thatcher’s new book, THE TWELVE MONOTASKS, lays out a STEP-BY-STEP PLAN OF ATTACK in areas of your life where you can develop laser focus to help you get stuff done. We also get into why he has been an advocate for READING AS MONOTASK AND A FORM OF SELF-CARE, and how you can use it as a means to BUILD FOCUS in the digital age. As a cancer survivor, he reveals why that diagnosis changed his PERSPECTIVE on how he approaches living. We’ve all faced situations like this, so you’ll readily identify with why you need a list of VALUES and PRACTICES in place now to help you get the most out of each day you’re alive. Thatcher Wine’s take on how to use MONOTASKING to better live your life WITH INTENTION and IN THE PRESENT MOMENT will open your eyes in many ways. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

enJanuary 11, 2022

Become a Focused Monotasker

Writing an email while on a Zoom call. Talking on the phone while walking. Scrolling through social media while watching a movie.

In both our work and our play, we're all doing more and more multitasking. Doing two things at once makes us feel as if we're more efficient and getting more done.

But my guest would say that all this task juggling actually makes us less productive, while diminishing the quality of our work and stressing our minds, and that we'd be better off curbing our multitasking in favor of monotasking. His name is Thatcher Wine and he's the author of The Twelve Monotasks: Do One Thing at a Time to Do Everything Better. Today on the show, Thatcher explains the illusions around multitasking and the benefits of monotasking — that is, bringing our full focus to a single task at a time. We discuss why reading is a foundational part of becoming a monotasker, and then get into some of the other activities Thatcher recommends monotasking, including walking, listening, traveling/commuting, and thinking. Thatcher argues that doing things like listening to a podcast while cleaning your house isn't necessarily a bad thing, but that you may want to try stripping everything away from your daily tasks except the primary tasks themselves to observe the resulting effect and to strengthen your "monotasking muscles" and rebuild your attention span. Once you've experimented with doing a task alone, you can then decide to layer back in the second activity, or, maybe decide you actually liked giving it your all.