Monotasking: How We Reclaim Our Attention

Over the past two years, we’ve all experienced the boundaries in our lives collapse. The lines between work, school, and home have blurred. And although the pandemic accelerated this process, you could argue we were moving in this direction anyway. There’s more to do, and technology gives us the means to do it all at once. People are just busier, and there seems to be no way around it. 

Thatcher Wine would disagree. As a parent, entrepreneur, and author of the new book The 12 Monotasks: Do One Thing at a Time to Do Everything Better, he’s no stranger to having multiple demands on his attention—and he’s figured out a way to sustainably meet those demands. We sat down to talk about what he’s doing to reclaim his attention, why it works for him, and ways you can implement it into your own life.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. 

Lauren Diethelm: Okay, so to start: What inspired these 12 monotasks? Is this concept something you came up with yourself, or were you introduced to it?

Thatcher Wine: The short answer is that I came up with them myself, from my own navigation of having a long to-do list and having a lot of distractions. Some of those distractions were the typical ones that everyone deals with, and some were a little bit more unusual—like going through cancer treatment a few years ago. 

Basically I just tried to figure out a way to reverse-engineer how I did get through all those challenging times in my life, and use that to figure out a way forward that was even more productive and successful. 

In the introduction of your book, you talk about how the pandemic encouraged you to redouble those monotasking efforts. Do you think that’s something that would have happened anyway, just because of the world we live in now? Or was the pandemic a unique pressure cooker for that?

I would say a little bit of both. I think the pandemic has been a unique pressure cooker for everybody, and people have responded in different ways. For me, this time came on the heels of a lot of personal challenges—coming out of cancer treatments, my divorce, and rebuilding my business. I had all these things I wanted to do, and then bumping against the pandemic, it felt like, “Oh, shoot, here we go again.” 

And at the same time, I knew this wasn’t my first resilience rodeo. I had proved to myself that I could navigate through personally hard things, and at the same time have a lot of empathy for what other people are also going through. So I came to all these realizations of how I wanted to manage my time and my attention just prior to the pandemic, and this book is an opportunity for me to get them all down on paper, and see if they could also help other people do the same. 

The timing of this book is very interesting, because I think prior to COVID a lot of people were aware on some level that they were doing too much, and they just couldn’t find a way of it. Then the pandemic hit and it kind of crystallized for people that they needed to change. So I wonder if you think this book and this concept of monotasking will land with people differently, considering what we’ve all just been through? 

Yeah, I think prior to the pandemic you can almost picture just all of humanity in this giant spaceship, just hurtling toward the future. All of us were thinking “I can go faster and faster and faster with more technology and more on my to-do list and all this financial and societal pressure,” and we all just thought rocket speed was the way to go. And then we all had this break. People slowed down a bit.

But it hasn’t stayed that way, though, right? Things are picking back up. So we’re all at this moment right now where I think a lot of people are wondering, what were the lessons of the pandemic? Have we given ourselves permission to slow down or not? We’re all kind of searching for the answer to this question right now, and for most people, I think the answer is no. We’re back to working all the time, and multitasking all the time, especially for those of us that are working parents. 

At the same time, we’re also asking other important questions. “What can I do to take better care of myself? To make my life more sustainable?” Because whether it’s a pandemic or something else, there’s always going to be something pulling at your attention. What I’ve tried to do with monotasking is just present an overall framework you can use to think critically about your time. You can use it to question, “Do I really need to do this now? Is this the most important thing? How can I really bring my attention to one thing at a time?” 

When we do that, whatever that one thing is—whether it’s our jobs, our home lives, our hobbies—it’s easier to feel like we did it well. The world is always going to be changing, but the present moment will always be right now, so let’s do what we can to be there for it and enjoy it. 

I wanted to ask you about that idea of “Do I really need to do this now?” because you’re in a similar position to a lot of our readers. You’re a business owner and a parent, and you have all the other familial and relational responsibilities that most of us have. What would you say to someone who might read about monotasking and think that this is a nice idea, but if they don’t multitask then something will fall through the cracks? 

Overall, monotasking is meant to be a pragmatic tool that can be adapted to fit into your life. The goal here isn’t to achieve some kind of monotasking sainthood. Really the goal is to develop awareness of when you’re multitasking and monotasking, and to use that awareness to make the decision to monotask when you need to, and when you can. If you want to chill out and turn on the TV and scroll on your phone at the same time, that’s great. What I’m saying is, check in with yourself—did you decide to do that, or is your time getting away from you? This tool can help us learn to be aware of when our attention is being hijacked away from us. 

I totally recognize that as an entrepreneur, especially when it’s just you, you wear a lot of hats. I still wear a lot of hats. And so there are real things that need to get done, and often you don’t have the luxury of time. I think the key is to bring awareness to the instinct that we have where we think, “If I just do all these things at the same time, then they’ll get done in less time.” 

What I’ve found is that I actually get them done in less time in the long run, and I make fewer mistakes. The quality of my work is better. And the really important thing is you feel better about yourself. Even if at the beginning when you monotask something it does take you a bit longer, you’ll have less of that feeling of overwhelm and like you never are able to get to anything. 

For me, a big part of this too is not only to pay more attention to my billing or marketing or whatever my task is, but I also make it a priority to set my phone aside. I have a bag that blocks all the signals from your phone, so it basically puts it in airplane mode without you having to actually put it in airplane mode. Whatever version of that is available to you, I recommend taking it, even if it’s just physically putting your phone in another room. Something about taking that source of multitasking and distraction out of the equation unlocks a lot of your cognitive abilities and your ability to pay attention and get more things done. 

I think about that instinct we have to constantly pick up our phones a lot. It feels like something that should be easy to stop doing, but actually takes a lot of effort. And that’s something you talk about in the book—that monotasking is like a muscle, that it needs to be trained. How long did it take you to feel comfortable leaving your phone and committing to really doing one thing at a time? It feels harder to do than it seems at first glance.

Yeah, it can be a little intimidating at first. I would say you should start monotasking just for a few seconds or a few minutes—you do not have to commit to changing your entire life. That’s the nice thing about it, and what was important to me. There was a time in my life where I literally didn’t have time to go to yoga or to meditation or any of those things that we think of to help us recenter. And I think people get stuck in thinking they’ll start a new habit when they have all this time to dedicate to starting the habit—but that time almost never comes. So for me, it’s really important to focus on what’s accessible, no matter what you’re doing or where you are. 

This way, it’s as simple as saying, “Oh, I noticed I’m trying to have this conversation on the phone while I’m also making breakfast.” It’s a lot easier to take the small step of calling that person back after you’re done eating than it is to commit to entirely changing your routine. But that small step can make a big difference. 

So I think the key is just to start somewhere. Start where you are, where you feel good. And don’t give yourself a hard time if you’re not able to go for a walk for an hour without your phone. Start by just going for the walk, and just pay a little more attention than you did before. Listen to the sounds underneath your feet and try to notice details you’ve never seen before. Our comfort level with this won’t change overnight, but the little bits that you can incorporate naturally into your life matter. 

And to be honest, given everything we’re up against with big technology, it’s never really going to change. The temptation to open your phone and clear that notification is alway going to be there. These companies have billions of dollars and thousands of people working hard to get our attention. This is the reality of our life, and will probably only get worse. So the more we can build up our monotasking muscles, the more we’re doing to have some control and defense over our attention and our time. 

One last thing I thought about a lot reading this book is about rest, and how resistant Americans in particular are to the idea of not doing anything. Sleep is also a huge focus of your work—can you talk about your ideas about rest, and what we can do to overcome some of that resistance we have to it?

Sure. I think my main takeaway from this book, if you only actually implement one thing, it would be to get more sleep. Don’t run yourself to the point of exhaustion and assume that you’ll catch up on the sleep you need at that point because your body is tired. It doesn’t work that way. You need to plan to get more sleep. 

The first part of monotasking sleep is literally to plan it. Think about what hours you’re going to be in bed, and then factor in how long it usually takes you to fall and stay asleep. Then plan backwards. When do you need to eat, when do you need to stop drinking water? Do you need supplements or anything to help you sleep? How do you set up your bed?

I sleep with these heavy pillows all around me—basically I sleep in a pillow fort. I feel like a little kid climbing into my pillow fort, but it works for me. I figured out this helps me sleep so much better. So try to figure out what your pillow fort is, and what you need to do to make it happen. 

It’s hard to do! Even just saying, “Okay, I’m going to take the afternoon and do something that feels restful to me” is something that makes people feel so guilty, like they’re falling behind on something else. 

Totally. It’s hard to be kind to ourselves about it. I broke most of my rules yesterday and stayed up too late working, and I didn’t get enough sleep. Today, I’m not going to be hard on myself, because what does that do? But it’s a good reminder. It’s my body’s way of saying “That’s why you stop working at this time. That’s why you don’t bring your laptop into bed.” And then I can use that to do better today, even if better isn’t perfect. 

There are so many little things that add up to success. I think that’s true for these tasks in the book and also just how people can approach their life more generally. Bring some awareness and attention to how you do things. Try to reduce the noise, and see what works for you. You’ll make some observations that maybe you’ve never made before, and then that can lead to meaningful change.