Excerpt from Deuteronomy 7:12

"If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you."

Reflection by Lillian Daniel

Remember the days, decades ago, when multitasking was hailed as the greatest invention time management had ever seen? Well, decades later, most of us know that it really doesn't work.

We still do it, check our emails while we're on the phone, balance laptops on our laps when we watch television, sometimes two channels at once. But we've learned the hard way that it's not all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe in haste you sent the wrong email to the wrong person, because you were moving too fast. More seriously, people have crashed cars and trains because they've been distracted by multitasking. But now comes the scientific backup for what we are beginning to suspect is true.

Executive coach Vickie Austin devoted a newsletter to the folly of multitasking. She cited an article from NeuroImage, a science journal, which determined that managing two mental tasks at the same time significantly reduces the brainpower available to concentrate on either task, ultimately damaging the quality of the final product.  Scientists reporting in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found it takes our brains four times longer to recognize and process when we switch between tasks. So if we just showed more patience and stuck with one thing at a time, we might actually be more efficient.

There's a story from London's East End where they have new lampposts designed to protect those who are not paying attention from banging into the posts.  This trial program began after a survey revealed that one in ten people were harmed by focusing on their cell phones instead of where they were walking. So they've padded the lampposts. Padded the lampposts? There has to be a better way.

Prayer

Gracious and attentive God, if I can't pay attention to the people in my life, and the tasks at hand, how can I pay attention to you and your teachings? Help me focus on the small things, so that I can focus on the big ones. Amen.

About the Author Lillian Daniel is the senior minister of the First Congregational Church, UCC, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She is the author, with Martin Copenhaver, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.

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