Speaker 1: 0:05
Welcome to Islamic Life Coach School Podcast. Apply tools that you learn in this podcast and your life will be unrecognizably successful. Now your host, dr Kamal Atlar. Hello, hello, hello everyone. Peace and blessings be upon all of you.
Speaker 1: 0:20
I'm recording this podcast outdoors, outside of my regular podcasting area, because it's one of the most beautiful days of Florida. Winter. Most of the year we spend in scorching hot summer, but winter is actually why I live in Florida. We had a few weeks of actually just a few days of 40 degree weather and we were freezing, but now we're back to 70-75 and it's just gorgeous and I wouldn't miss it. So I decided to do the podcast outdoors. So if you hear birds chirping in the background or airplanes flying by, it's because I'm outside. It's absolutely serene, it's absolutely beautiful. I'm in one of my favorite areas, with a lake and benches, and I have my laptop for the recording and my outline. And here I am.
Speaker 1: 1:07
But do not confuse the luxury of my podcasting alhamdulillah with shallowness of the message that I'm going to be giving you today. I'm going to be talking about multitasking, how to increase your productivity and how to do multitasking effectively, and it is one of the most profound messages that I can give you. So take notes and come back to the podcast if you need to, but pay attention. Most times we are craving overstimulation by multitasking, because that is what our mind has been cultivated to do through advertisements, immediate gratification of video games and quick change of pace in TV programmings. And that has to do with comedy in one scene, tragedy in the next, deep sense of fulfillment in a scene after that and complete restlessness right after that. While we intellectually know that we cannot replicate that rollercoaster of emotions in life in such a short period of time as depicted on television, we still try to replicate that because our body craves that level of stimulation. As a result, the culture of multitasking is born. Most of us are trying to satisfy the need of stimulation by multitasking. Everything in the current culture becomes about multitasking Gatherings with loud noises, music, games, food, social media. One post gives you a completely different experience compared to the next post Instagram, tiktok, facebook where the novelty of the feeds continues to be the magnetic factor that the algorithm uses to keep us hooked. So when we're actually living our daily lives, we're trying to replicate that novelty through multitasking. It might seem from this intro that I'm anti-multitasking, but I'm actually not.
Speaker 1: 2:45
Multitasking is an art, it's a skill, and today we will learn how to properly multitask to optimize our performance, our physical and mental health. So I've divided multitasking in three categories, using how much attention each task requires. There are tasks that require our active attention and those are like learning something new, performing on creating something new. A passive task is something that we've performed multiple times before to the point of expertise, and those tasks don't require our active attention, like cooking for some people, or crunching numbers or stuffing boxes for shipment. Biological functions like breathing, digestion, also count as passive tasks tasks even though they've always been out of our conscious awareness. So multitasking can be divided into three categories, using active and passive tasks. First category active on active attention task. Second category active and a passive combination type of task. And third category two or more passive tasks. So in one of these three combinations active, active, active, passive or passive passive in one of these categories is where it lies the art of multitasking.
Speaker 1: 3:56
If you find yourself in a position where you're multitasking to the point of exhaustion, you're engaging in more than one active attention task, which is the first category. This type of multitasking is stressful to the body on the physiological level because our conscious mind is designed to pay attention to only one stimulus at a time. Our conscious mind can only monotask, so never, ever multitask. In the first category of active-active, where two things are tugging at your attention in two different directions and that kind of stress leads to all different sorts of body signs and symptoms. If you're spinning out of control, trying to multitask and not getting anything accomplished, you are trying to multitask in the first category.
Speaker 1: 4:40
Most of us are so attached to the idea of multitasking because we're under the illusion that we can get a lot more accomplished. But multitasking on two or more active, attention-requiring tasks is only about the busyness of the mind. And since you know through the messaging of this podcast that your nervous system creates your emotions, busyness of the mind leads to the busyness of the body. The emotional burden increases, leading to stress, and stress is the direct substrate for illnesses leading to fatigue, chronicity of tiredness, forgetfulness. Our busyness of the body is seen as an illness by the brain and it results in physical symptoms. Those physical symptoms can be GI symptoms like IBS or irritable bowel syndrome, forgetfulness to the point that we think we have early dementia setting in or being inattentive because we're just training our mind to jump from task to task and we think we have ADD. Multitasking to the point of exhaustion has a real consequence on the body and it will have physical symptoms that will surface even as diseases. It even manifests in craving for foods and weight gain as we try to soothe the stress away with comfort foods, or because of the direct effect of cortisol on the body.
Speaker 1: 5:55
As it relates to stress and weight gain, misconception is that multitasking is cutting your attention in half. Your attention cannot be cut in half. It can only transfer from one object to another. Your active attention is a solid block. It's a unit. It cannot be divided further. It only shifts, and a rapid switching or shifting of attention creates stress. This premise holds true when you're talking about active attention. This design, though, does not hold true when it comes to passive tasks, things that are programmed into your subconscious.
Speaker 1: 6:32
Passive attention involves simply being present and aware of something without necessarily giving it much thought or effort. Passive attention may be less focused and is more easily disrupted. Task can be chopping vegetables for your healthy stir fry, or it can be attending an outdated training that was mandated 10 years ago and HR says that you have to sit through it. You perform tasks with passive attention that you have repeated countless times. Walking is a great example. When you were learning to walk as a toddler, it required attention One step after another. You fell on your bum a few times. But now you've done it so many times that it's passive. You don't even think about it.
Speaker 1: 7:15
But I also see in my practice as a physician when someone has a stroke and their walking is affected, they forget to walk like they had learned before because that area of the brain is affected. They need to undergo rehabilitation, which is the process of paying active attention, to learn how to walk again or to talk again or to eat again, whatever function the stroke affected. They lose their expertise in that action and they get to learn it again. The task of walking is no longer passive for these patients. It becomes active. So our nervous system can pay attention passively or actively.
Speaker 1: 7:53
Most passive attention is the function of the subconscious mind. Multitasking fails miserably when we're trying to do two or more tasks that require active attention. But we can multitask if both tasks require passive attention. But also in the middle and the most important category, only about 5% of multitasking lies where one task is passive and the other one is active. This second category is where the gold lies, and this only involves about 5% of the daily tasks that we do, not more than that. There's a whole gamut of functions happening beneath your conscious understanding, including your digestion, including all of the chemical reactions at the physiological and cellular level. Believe it or not, your nervous system is still controlling that part, but that is 90% of the nervous system and that is the subconscious mind, including the body, which is a part of the subconscious mind. If you have to multitask and I understand that we all do that you're going to do it skillfully and you're not going to just do it haphazardly, starting to do two things at the same time, Because if you start to do two things without thinking about which requires your active attention, it will result in a prolonged time that will take you to finish the job and it will result in an inferior outcome of your action. So, after listening to this podcast, you're going to create an inventory of what actions are passive for you, something you get done effortlessly. You can create a written or a mental inventory because on top of these passive tasks, you can take one active task. This is the 5% of the perfect zone of optimizing multitasking.
Speaker 1: 9:36
A little while ago I set out to organizing my three kids' closets in each of their rooms and I gave myself an hour to do the job, and I was also looking forward to learning a new concept from an audiobook. So I decided this might be a good time. I mean, organizing a kid's closet how hard could it be? I figured it didn't require too much of my active attention, or so I thought. So I'm trying to organize and listen, but all of a sudden it's 40 minutes later and I wasn't even done with one closet and what I had done so far wasn't to my liking. And not to mention, I didn't understand a single thing that the book was talking about. So I felt so frustrated because of my thinking that this is not working out. This is so much harder than anyone makes it seem. It turns out I was creating that difficulty for myself. I realized organizing closets is not a passive task, at least not for me. So I stopped listening to the book and paid attention just to the organizing taking old, outgrown or damaged items out, making room for new ones, organizing by seasons Well, we live in Florida so we don't really have seasons, but organizing clothes by hot summer and midsummer items and the rest of the items took me 10 minutes at least in each closet. So at the hour and 10 minute mark from when I started, I was done organizing the closets A little over my original allotted time. But that's okay. And at that point my lower brain had the tendency to think that I had wasted the original 40 minutes. But given that I can watch myself think, I decided to deliberately think that those 40 minutes I needed were to be spent in order for me to learn a valuable lesson, and that was that organizing is not a passive task for me, and this is where the beauty of coaching lies it makes it easy for us to learn life-changing skills without feeling guilty, ashamed or worn out.
Speaker 1: 11:28
Also, in another example, in my daytime job I work a week on week off schedule. I work a week during daytime in the hospital and I'm on call during that week. So if I get a call in the middle of dinner time I have to excuse myself, and I've trained my family where they know that this might be happening. But I also have a week off from work where I keep my phone off completely and all of my friends and family and co-workers know that if I don't get back to them in time it's because I'm not attached to the phone for that week. But on my week on duty I get woken up in the middle of the night with phone calls at any and all hours of the day, and it's predictably happening because that's the nature of my job and I don't hold that against myself. When the phone call requires my active attention, I don't try to multitask and be present at the table and be present with the kids. I just excuse myself. They're okay with it because they know mommy's coming right back. They know that this has happened a lot where she goes away for a bit and then she comes back, fully attentive to me. To come to this level of functioning, all I did was drop resistance to my traditional understanding of multitasking and that's what I'm trying to provide you guys here.
Speaker 1: 12:42
So the only category you can profitably and efficiently do multitasking in is the passive-active category. And just because it's the only category does not mean that you should always plan on doing an active task on top of a passive one, and just soaking the experience is one of the best ways to drive joy out of an activity. Walking in nature or being present with nature doesn't require too much active attention, but if you choose to pay attention to the things around you, taking it in with all of your senses, it can become one of the most serene and joyful experiences. As I was doing for about a half hour before I decided to record this podcast, I deliberately spend time connecting with nature, just watching the clouds pass by, watching the trees move with the wind, and I take time out of my day to be able to do that because it is so calming, just to let yourself soak in the experience. And this also especially applies to kids and family members.
Speaker 1: 13:43
Most popular parenting advice is that you spend more time with your kids, but what I say to that is it's about giving them active attention more than the amount of time you spend with them. If you're on the phone or reading a book while they're playing. That's you giving them active attention more than the amount of time you spend with them If you're on the phone or reading a book while they're playing. That's you giving them passive attention. Children thrive when you give them active attention, and it's a misconception if you think that they will always want your attention and you won't be able to do anything else. A child will let you know when they've had their fill of your attention and this attention translates into quality time. When, in a gathering, our prophet peace be upon him paid attention to each individual, that they felt like they were the most important person in the room to him. Don't make your loved ones the passive recipients of your attention. Passive recipients of your attention.
Speaker 1: 14:35
If you want to be successful at something, if you want to become masterful, skillful at something, it will require your active attention and you can do many passive tasks without having any problems. But for a fraction of a fraction of your day, I would say only 5% or even less, is where you can deliberately decide to multitask. Key term deliberately Plan on. Multitasking on top of something you've already decided is passive for you and ironically here, even that planning will require some active attention. But that's the only way, and the only correct way, to multitask. There's a certain resistance that humans have to planning and that's due to the primitive circuitry. In the Islamic tradition it's called nafs al-armara, bil su Comfort brain says planning takes energy. Let's just wing it, and winging it takes more time. The brain is so fascinating to me. So follow this process and multitask properly. It will save you time, which tasks are passive for you and where do you have room to multitask depends on your skill level and yours only.
Speaker 1: 15:39
Nobody else can tell you that, for example, guys in my family can play video games and listen to a self-help book because they've been playing video games for so long. It doesn't require much of their active attention. My sister can watch TV and have a conversation. I can't do that. My mom has a remote job and she listens to the Quran in the background and she has so much of it memorized just by listening to it. I mean, imagine working eight hours a day and if you have something playing on repeat in the background, you're bound to remember some of it. She recites the Quran ahead of the reciter and I'm amazed if I ask her how much do you have memorized? She says I don't really have it memorized. It's almost like it got programmed into her subconscious without her awareness. How cool is that? And even some of our scholars say that you can have the Quran recitation running in the background if you need something to listen to rather than music or listening to mindless tv programming. I'm giving you guys more and more of these examples, so it sparks curiosity for you because you do have expertise in certain areas that you're not capitalizing on.
Speaker 1: 16:44
So I've been a hospital physician for 10 years and it's a part of my being. I know so much about a certain patient before I've even stepped into their room. I can hear nurses giving each other sign out on my patients and understand all of the night events that happen to the patient without ever engaging in the conversation actively. I can hear an overhead page to a specialist and I can deduce that they're being called on a matter involving my patient. I can have a three-sentence conversation with a consultant about my patient and we will both be in deep understanding of the level of care about my patient that would otherwise require a novice doctor much longer period of time. And that's because medicine, specifically type of hospital medicine, has become a part of my subconscious programming. It gives me a level of expertise. I've done it so much, I've repeated so much. I can give orders in the middle of the night on a septic patient and they turn out fine in the morning. That was not a level of my expertise when I started. When I trained. It required all of my active attention when I was training almost 80 hours of work a week dedicated to learning these methods, especially in my residency. Now, if someone's to put me in outpatient medicine, learning the ropes would require my active attention again until I've navigated the learning curve.
Speaker 1: 18:02
And the cycle will continue with any new task. For you, it might be driving back and forth from work or to the grocery store. You've done it countless times, you know the routine and there's no active attention required unless you have to stop to pick up dry cleaning on the way and you pass the store and you don't even remember, because remembering to pick up the dry cleaning required an act of active attention when you were driving on autopilot. Or let's say you've driven to your friend's house a hundred times, but now there's construction going on along the way and you can't drive the usual route. You have to find a different way. Even if you're navigating, you have to dedicate some active attention to the new roads and the new turns. When I was getting my house renovated, the contractors made the tiling process seamless because they're professionals. They've done it over and over again. They don't need to be relearning it with active attention every time they lay tiles in a different house.
Speaker 1: 18:57
If there is a task that you've done countless times, then it gets programmed into your subconscious. That's where you have wiggle room to multitask, and I mean some wiggle room. Most of us are making the mistake of spending majority of the day multitasking, thinking we're getting more done. We're not. How much of passive programming goes in your day it depends on your profession. If you're in a labor-intensive task which requires your physical capabilities, that can totally be outsourced to your subconscious mind. But if you do a job that requires creativity of your mind, then that will require active attention each time you engage in your daily work. That you cannot dedicate to your subconscious mind because you're getting paid to use your attention. This active attention is what my job qualifies under but, like I explained, I've gotten really good at a certain aspects of my job and make it more efficient.
Speaker 1: 19:49
Where somebody new might struggle with it in the beginning, when absolutely not to multitask, and that's during prayers the whole point is to bring remembrance of Allah in our active attention during our five daily prayers or act of any other ibadah. Religion is not compartmentalized. Religion is not just acts, it's a way of life. All teachings of Islam have a profound meaning behind them that help us live our daily lives. Any task done with deliberateness, with mindfulness, with clarity of intention behind it, is always going to be superior. This is why we purify our intentions behind each task before we get to work on it. This application of a level of consciousness to a task makes it worthy of a higher reward.
Speaker 1: 20:35
Your attention is your single most valuable currency. Using it systematically and efficiently will put you light years in front of your counterparts. In order to successfully multitask, you have to have two qualifying fields One be an expert at one task and choose to do something else, passive with it, or something that partially requires attention. But this only makes a small fraction of your day, much smaller fraction that we're currently dedicating to it. Don't believe a blanket statement that excludes all possibilities of multitasking. If we couldn't multitask, then breathing and watching TV would be impossible. Then walking and answering a phone call would be impossible. There is 5% or less of your day where you can creatively multitask only if it improves your performance.
Speaker 1: 21:25
With that, I pray to Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala, that, o Allah, we ask that you give us hearts that are alive and present in our prayers. May we establish our prayers in a way that increases our consciousness of you. Grant us superior capacity to pay active attention in your abhada. Help us to excel in all forms of worship and free us from distractions. Be our greatest guardian and protector. Help us optimize our lives in this world so that we don't forget the big picture of the hereafter. Let our hearts remain in the state of submission, without multitasking. Ameen Ya Rabbul Aameen, please keep me in your duas. I will talk to you guys next time.
