Dougal Sutherland: The benefits of doing one thing at a time

Some would argue our world has got too busy, too frantic, that we never get a chance to switch off. An estimate from a few years ago believes we have as much as 34GB of information coming into us every day. Some of this business is likely due to never being able to switch off from incoming info, as well as a loss of “stopping cues” around us, e.g. ads on linear tv, intermissions at movies. 

We can get into a pattern of always being on, always “doing”, never stopping and just “being”. It’s arguably not good for our wellbeing —a constant low level of stress— and can also affect relationships, e.g. having a conversation at the same time as scrolling on your phone. 

Here are three things people could try if they want to experiment with an antidote to this business:  

1) Mindfulness: one aspect of mindfulness is becoming aware of when your attention has shifted and moving it back to just one thing, e.g. your breathing. 

2) Concentrating on doing everyday tasks one at a time, e.g. if brushing your teeth, just brush your teeth. Notice all the aspects of it – notice your mind wandering away and practice bringing it back to the task at hand. 

3) Watch some slow tv. My best recommendation for the moment is the Great Moose Migration on Swedish tv (svtplay.sw). It’s 24/7 coverage of moose migrating across a river —over 30 cameras but very slow— long shots of Swedish wilderness without a moose in sight. It’s on right now but only lasts for a few more days – you can almost feel your blood pressure lowering. 

Give it a go, see if it makes a difference! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
That'd be clinical psychologist Google Sutherland is with us this morning.
He's from Umbrella Wellbeing of course golda Google cureder.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Jack. How are you, I'm yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well a little bit, you know, frustrated this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Frustrated.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's just it's a it's appalling. Honestly,
these things are just appalling. And I just cannot believe
that for all of the technology and AI development and
all of that stuff, that companies like Meta can't do
more to actually stop this thing from happening in the
first place. I just I don't find.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I completely completely agree. It's you know, if you if
you put the if we put the emphasis on those
companies to actually rub this stuff out, yeah, and you know,
prevent children from under the age of twelve being on.
You know, I think we're rather than that, all the
emphasis having to go on people having to do it themselves.
It's just the biggest belief that they can't do it,
I think.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah, I mean, they just have no financial incentive right now,
which is the problem. Anyway. Hey, so last time we spoke,
I talking about being very busy and always doing a
thousand things at once, and that has inspired in new
a topic for this morning, which is the benefits of
doing one thing at a time. And look, Google, it
doesn't take them much to say that this might be
targeted to me.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Well, you know, it was just inspired by our conversation.
I was just reflecting on it because I used to
have a very similar pattern to you, and you know,
doing trying to do three things at once and pack
in as much as you can, and brushing my teeth
while you know, combing my hair and listening to a
podcast at the same time whilst keeping the other air
on the news. And actually I think it just adds

(01:45):
to the sense of frenetic busyness franticness that we have,
many of us have in our lives, and being able
to disentangle yourself from that I think can have some
real benefits just for living your life in or destressing
taking some of the business out of life.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
For sure. I mean, it's not a virtue, and I
have to remind myself this sometimes, like being busy isn't
a virtue. It's actually like you know, there are some
really significant downsides to it. But it is amazing how
busy our lives have become, especially with that addictive little
electronic device in our pockets. So as an estimate from
a couple of years ago that we have thirty four

(02:27):
gigabytes of information coming at us every day.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yeah, that's and that is from a number of years ago.
I was trying to find some more recent figures on
that and but I couldn't come across anything. But that
was I think a Stanford study that was done a
few years ago saying that that's how much they estimate.
And I'm sure that is more now. And you know, Spark,

(02:52):
going back to your comments just previously around social media,
which not really social anymore, but just that influx of information,
and you know, it's always coming at us, always coming
at us. And I'm not you know, I'm not a
love eye. I I've got a phone, and I'm on
social media, and I've use iPads and computers. But it's
just can be overwhelming. And I think we get into

(03:13):
the pattern of always being on and always trying to juggle,
and always doing three things at once. And I'm not
sure that that's actually all that helpful, to be honest with.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
You, No, I tend to agree, you know, it's you know,
there are obvious kind of negative effects on well being, right,
You've always got that kind of low level of stress,
and you know, I just find that like like busyness
kind of breeds busyness, and it kind of you know,
when you're addicted to your phone and someone's you know,
and you're having conversation with someone and then you just
find yourself reaching for it and kind of scrolling mindlessly

(03:44):
in a conversation.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Like, it's really bad.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
It's bad for relationships.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Man.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
So anyway, you've got three tips this morning, practical things
that we can do to try and focus on one
thing at a time.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Look, firstly, and we've discussed mindfulness before
and many many people I'm sure listening will have heard
of mindfulness, but I don't encourage people to dig into
that a little bit more. That's it's it's a lot.
It's it's more than people think it is, and it's
it's it's one of the one of the benefits of it.

(04:17):
I always think about mindfulness actually is a bit like
an onion, is that you know, there's layers and layers,
and the more you do, the more you kind of
understand it and appreciate it. One of the benefits I
think is just learning to notice when your mind has
where your awareness is drifted onto something else and allow
yourself to bring it back to just doing one thing

(04:38):
at a time and acknowledging that we will get distracted
and that's okay, but just bringing back the control of
your awareness. So you're just going to do this one
thing at a time, whatever that one thing and so
I think that that's that's the first tip. Okay, second
second would be and a little bit inspired by you

(04:58):
our conversation from a couple of weeks ago. You know,
you around you brushing teeth and listen to a podcast,
et cetera. Get into the pract this or the habit
of just doing a task. A daily task might be
something like, you know, brushing your teeth or getting dressed,
or even cycling or walking or doing the dishes. Just

(05:20):
do that task. So practice doing that one thing and
just noticing all the different components of this. So if
you're brushing your teeth and it sounds a little bit
kind of people might be going with the X it's
going to do about but you know, noticing the taste
of toothpaste, noticing the feel of in your mouth, noticing,

(05:41):
noticing all those aspects, noticing when your mind drifts off
and it goes to something else, and just practice bringing
it back. So there's nothing magic about brushing your teeth
or doing the dishes or going for a walk necessarily,
but it is that practice, that habit of actually noticing
your mind drifting away, getting distracted by other things, and
bringing it back just to this one thing.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Yeah, your third tip is an absolute doozy, a classic.
This is this is something a little bit less field.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Oh look it's and you know, I've got to be honest.
I'm not being paid for this endorsement in any way
safe or form. But my daughter and I my daughter
is home for the for the Easter weekend from Union
Auckland and we just heard I don't know, we came
across this this. It's Moose TV basically, and it's Swedish

(06:34):
slow TV. And I'm sure many people have heard of
slow TV, but this is a these It's about thirty
cameras on Swedish TV running twenty four to seven and
you can log on, you can go to the website
and watch it yourself. You don't have to be in
Sweden and it's essentially thirty cameras that are tracking migrating
moose across a river, and at last count I just

(06:58):
checked about half an hour ago, sixty four moose had
crossed over the past about fourteen or fifteen days. So
that gives you the sense of how But there's just
something I honestly can almost feel my blood pressure reduced
just by sitting there watching it, because there's these beautiful
scenes of Swedish fewards and rivers and nothing. I've got

(07:19):
to be honest, nothing much is happening for most of
that time. It's just it's just pictures of forest or
a river, and occasionally you see the most if you're
very lucky. But it's yeah, it's just really and it's
just like, oh, I can almost just feel I'm just
watching this one thing. I've not got ads coming in.
I'm not switching. It's just this thing. So I think

(07:43):
it's on for about four or five more days, so
people can go and check it out if they're interested
in that.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
I love it. There's such a good idea. I'm going
to give it a crack. I swear, hey, thank you
so much. We will take up very soon. Google Sutherland
from umbrella well being there.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
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