Ikigai : the Japanese secret to a long and happy life pdfdrive com

C oncentrating on a Single Task
Multitasking
Makes achieving flow more likely	Makes achieving flow impossible
Increases productivity	Decreases productivity by 60 percent (though it doesn’t seem to)
Increases our power of retention	Makes it harder to remember things
Makes us less likely to make mistakes	Makes us more likely to make mistakes

Helps us feel calm and in control of the task at

Helps us feel calm and in control of the task at hand	Makes us feel stressed by the sensation that we’re losing control, that our tasks are controlling us
Causes us to become more considerate as we pay full attention to those around us	Causes us to hurt those around us through our “addiction” to stimuli: always checking our phones, always on social media . . .
Increases creativity	Reduces creativity

What can we do to avoid falling victim to this flow-impeding epidemic? How can we train our brains to focus on a single task? Here are a few ideas for creating a space and time free of distractions, to increase our chances of reaching a state of flow and thereby getting in touch with our ikigai:
Don’t look at any kind of screen for the first hour you’re awake and the last hour before you go to sleep.
Turn off your phone before you achieve flow. There is nothing more important than the task you have chosen to do during this time. If this seems too extreme, enable the “do not disturb” function so only the people closest to you can contact you in case of emergency.
Designate one day of the week, perhaps a Saturday or Sunday, a day of technological “fasting,” making exceptions only for e-readers (without WiFi) or MP3 players.

Go to a café that doesn’t have Wi-Fi.
Read and respond to e-mail only once or twice per day. Define those times clearly and stick to them.
Try the Pomodoro Technique: Get yourself a kitchen timer (some are made to look like a pomodoro, or tomato) and commit to working on a single task as long as it’s running. The Pomodoro Technique recommends 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest for each cycle, but you can also do 50 minutes of work and 10 minutes of rest. Find the pace that’s best for you; the most important thing is to be disciplined in completing each cycle.

Start your work session with a ritual you enjoy and end it with a reward. Train your mind to return to the present when you find yourself getting distracted. Practice mindfulness or another form of meditation, go for a walk or a swim—whatever will help you get centered again.
Work in a space where you will not be distracted. If you can’t do this at home, go to a library, a café, or, if your task involves playing the saxophone, a music studio. If you find that your surroundings continue to distract you, keep looking until you find the right place.
Divide each activity into groups of related tasks, and assign each group its own place and time. For example, if you’re writing a magazine article, you could do research and take notes at home in the morning, write in the library in the afternoon, and edit on the couch at night.
Bundle routine tasks—such as sending out invoices, making phone calls, and so on—and do them all at once.