There's an interesting subtext I've found in some of my fellow physician finance blogger's material that exhorts us to be more efficient, to not waste a single minute spent on our toilet seats, to regard exercise breaks as opportunities for self-improvement via podcasts played at 1.5 speed to cram our minds full of yet more knowledge.
If that type of self-transformation speaks to a subset of readers, I have no objection. I just want to reassure those readers who inadequate for not sharing these goals that ruthless efficiency is in no way required to either reach financial independence nor to reassert control over how you allocate your time.
In fact, I have a confession to make: I am a proud mono-tasker.
When we moved into our home, the master bathroom had recently been remodeled to include a small wall-mounted flat screen TV. I guess the prior owners liked to watch the news while conducting their business. That unfortunately placed assembly of electronics has not been turned on once since 2009. Why would I violate the sanctity of my morning constitutional with the news?
I can't have a television on in a room and simultaneously hold a conversation - the distraction is too compelling. Ditto for having a radio on the background, or trying to study with music on.
I am easily overwhelmed with plural inputs (to say nothing of my own children).
Occasionally, I find that parallel multi-taskers have trouble with serial mono-taskers like me. The conflicts arise when I am perceived to be holding their progress back in some way, rendering them less efficient.
I never met my wife's grandfather, but I've always appreciated one of the treasured family stories of his dry wit. In his later years, he was asked if his wife was his durable power for healthcare, assigned to make proxy decisions on his behalf if he ever became incapacitated.
He reportedly replied with a perfect deadpan: No way. She takes my plate before I'm finished eating.
Comments 3
Everyone is too distracted. They might think they are getting more done, but sometimes it’s good to just do one thing or maybe nothing. I agree, physicians don’t have all the answers. Just sitting and listening to the birds or the waves and nothing else, that is beautiful.
Is “finished eating” even defined by an empty plate? Is it defined by the biochemistry of satiety? Is it defined by the created memory of the experience once the experience becomes rememberable? Is it defined by the creation of the food? Butter encrusted dry aged beef can take 60 days to be created and the time frame of its creation process is totally opaque to the 20 minutes invested by “meal finisher”. A fine wine may age decades and be totally dependent on the weather of the year of the vintage.
The texture of being is far different than the time driven slavery of efficiency
Author
Gasem,
As for finished eating, with apologies to Justice Potter and his famed pornography case, “I know it when I feel it.”
The delta separating the experience of the quality of time and the societal impetus for increased efficiency is one of my biggest pet peeves:
-Children are inefficient
-Leisure is inefficient
-Fooling around with the person you love is inefficient
Given that some of the most pleasurable and important human experiences are inefficient, it should give us all pause before prioritizing the prevailing ethos of more, faster = better.
-CD