Exactly one thing at a time, not two, not half

It is the end of April and it snowed last Friday after I got home from a monthly shopping at Costco. I got lazy, not finishing unload all stuff from Costco from my car trunk; and left the trunk up in the air.  “I will do it tomorrow morning when I leave home”, I thought to myself.   I forgot ” tomorrow is a Saturday, I am planning to stay home.”  

Today is Monday, when I often wake up early like 5am. Getting my lunch bag, gym bag, and backpack, I was ready to head office at 6:45am. Omg, one push, two pushes, my prius protested with a soft “winging.”  Oh, battery is weak; and the engineer wouldn’t start.  Keeping the trunk in the air drained the battery.  Rushed home and put a rush order for a portable auto jump starter from amazon. Good! Amazon shows “delivery between 11am–2:15pm.” Perhaps I could still make it to the dean’s 1 clock lunch meeting. Good that the class happened to be cancelled. Otherwise, I would have to take a uber to get to class.    

At round 8am, amazon tracker told me the item was shipped. I was praying religiously. Until 12:00pm, Amazon updated delivery time window: 1:15pm – 2:15pm. I gave up and emailed dean’s secretary to apologize and cancel my free lunch.

Above is the consequence of “half-tasking”, the opposite of multitasking, not finishing a task that has been started and can be finished only if I am a tiny bit more patient. Actually, half-tasking sometimes is the consequence of “multitasking”. Before we finish one task, we rush to start a second task, and end up with several semi-finished tasks, which, neglected, may lead to costly consequences such as my “car-cannot-start” fiasco this Monday morning.

In management world, “just-in-time” or “lean-manufacturing”, originated in Japan and influenced by “zen” is proved to have many real benefits for a modern company: less waste in time/space, raw materials, expose quality problems and thus reveal opportunities to improve, better work morale, and higher productivity. This philosophy is hyped and taught nearly in everything business school worldwide. And, I am teaching it to students myself at various higher institutions. yet, I do not always abide by it in my daily life.

“Just-in-time” is to tell us “do one thing at a time,” it is rooted in many traditions including Buddhism or Confucian. If you go to temples to experience “zen”, in dinner time, you will be required to just “eat”, just “sit”, just “walk”, or just “sleep”, do one thing at at time only.   Eating while talking or listening is prohibited; you are encouraged to look, taste the food you are eating: its color, texture, tastes and how you feel when you pick it up, when it is in your mouth. You are allowed to chat with zen practicer only at an allotted  time.

I will remind myself–“one thing at a time” from today and on. I will be less hurried, worried, and troubled.