So, I fell off the edge of the earth a few months ago. Fortunately, I did have a rope tied around my waist. Unfortunately, it hurt like a banshee when the rope extended to its full length. Fortunately, I have some extra padding so my liver was not completely halved. Unfortunately, it took me awhile to pull myself back up to the edge of the earth. Fortunately, I managed to swing my leg up and over and got myself back up here onto the earth. Unfortunately, it had been so long since I had written that I was too embarrassed to come back. Fortunately, I remembered that I enjoy blogging and there seem to be one to three people who like reading my writing, so I got over myself.

And so, here I am again.

You might be wondering what made me come back after all this time. Was it taking up the drums? Was it my fourth child getting ready to go to college? Was it the exciting prospect of my eldest coming home for awhile? Was it the new things in the works with my honey’s career?

Nope. None of those things. What got me back here was clutter. The very reason I started this blog in 2008. You see, I thought I might go for a bike ride today. But in the process of preparing, I realized my life is rather like Fibber McGee’s closet.

Too much stuff to pay attention to. Too little organization of it all. Too much time to find things. Too little putting away of things. Too much distraction. Too little concentration.

Therefore, I have decided today that I am embarking on a 30-day challenge to become a champion of single-tasking. Today is day 0. Just getting all the details figured out and putting them out there to give myself a little bit of accountability.

I have three objectives:

Objective: become aware of what is distracting me from what/who is in front of me.
Objective: become stronger at focusing on one single task at a time.
Objective: discover what has to change in order to become more focused and able to concentrate.

The internet tells me that mono-tasking, or single-tasking, is the practice of dedicating oneself to a given task and minimizing potential interruptions until the task is completed or a significant period of time has elapsed. Multi-tasking actually adds cognitive stress with every switch and this accumulates and can eventually lead to fatigue, overload and burnout.

Frankly, I’ve had enough fatigue, overload and burnout. My quest is to find the holy grail of the perfect intersection of energy, enthusiasm, and eustress.