In defense of doing one thing at a time

Photo by Rodion Kutsaiev from Unsplash

There is a quiet kind of rebellion in choosing to give one action your full attention. In a world that praises multitasking and getting ahead, doing one thing at a time looks inefficient on the surface, but it often leads to deeper work and a calmer nervous system.

What happened

Today, the temptation to stack tasks showed up early.

While making coffee, there was a pull to also scan emails, tidy the counter, and start planning the day in my head. Sitting down to write, there was a twitch toward checking messages ‘just in case,’ opening multiple tabs, and keeping a chat window nearby. Even during a simple walk down the hallway, the mind tried to schedule, review, and rehearse.

When the decision was made - just for an experiment - to do one thing at a time, the day felt different. Coffee was made with both hands and both eyes on the process. Writing happened with only the document open. Walking down the hallway meant simply walking, noticing light and sound instead of planning the next five steps. The clock did not punish this choice; the work still got done. But the internal noise turned down a notch.

How I slowed it down

• Named multitasking for what it often is: rapid switching, not true simultaneous attention.

• Chose one anchor task per block of time (make coffee, write one paragraph, wash dishes) and committed to staying with it until a natural stopping point.

• Closed or put away obvious second tasks: extra tabs, notifications, open chats, background videos.

• Used small, physical cues - placing the phone in another room, sitting in one specific chair for focused work - to remind the body that this moment belongs to one thing.

• Allowed small pauses inside the task (a breath between sentences, a pause between dishes) instead of escaping into a different task whenever discomfort appeared.

What this space is teaching me

The spaces of home - kitchen, desk, hallway, sink - become mirrors for how scattered or unified attention has become. Doing one thing at a time in these spaces reveals how much energy is lost in constant switching. The coffee still takes the same minutes to brew, but when attention is split three ways, those minutes feel thin and unsatisfying; when they are given fully to one act, they can feel oddly grounding.

This practice also exposes a subtle fear: the idea that if attention is not stretched across everything, something important will be missed. Yet the opposite often proves true. When the mind is divided, details slip through; mistakes increase, rest feels further away. When the mind is gathered around a single action, there is more capacity left over for the next. The space teaches that presence is not a luxury add on; it is a way of moving that actually conserves energy instead of burning it.

Underneath this is a core idea: focus is a form of kindness. Doing one thing at a time is not about being rigid; it is about giving both the task and the self the dignity of full attention. The home becomes a training ground for this, so that choosing focus becomes natural in other environments too.

Try this in your space

Today, choose one ordinary activity and make it a single task experiment.

• Pick something small: making a drink, folding laundry, writing an email, washing your face at night.

• Before you begin, put away or mute anything that might compete for your attention.

• As you move through the task, notice when your mind wants to reach for a second thing - your phone, another tab, a new chore - and gently return to the one action at hand.

• When you finish, pause for a moment before starting the next thing. Feel what it is like to complete something without having diluted your attention.

Let this be a simple case study in your own life: not a theory about focus, but a felt experience of what changes - inside and out - when you let yourself do just one thing at a time.