This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 1296, a primer on full-screen living by Leo Baba out of ZenHabits.net and I'm just a molecular, very own personal narrator today and every day, so it's not a typical podcast. There are no interviews, and it's short, almost always fewer than 10 minutes. I'll have some comments of my own on this post, so stick around to the end to share those. If you're new here listening from oldpodcast.com or YouTube, there are lots of ways to listen for free on the go.
The most convenient is to use a free podcast app that lets you listen in the car or wherever. I recommend trying something like that out just to subscribe or follow a button in any podcast app. For now, let's get right to the post and start optimizing your life. A primer on full-screen living by Leo Baba out of ZenHabits.net The other day while I was visiting a friend, she offered her dog a bone.
The dog wanted the bone, but didn't want to drop the toy animal in his mouth to get the bone. Jack, you can't have both at the same time, my friend said. Most of us are like Jack. We want more than one thing at once.
We're not willing to let go of one thing in order to do another. We're doing one work task while trying to stay on top of email, text messages, and social media. We're talking with a friend while seeing what we're missing on Facebook and Instagram. We're eating while planning, making love while thinking about work.
Like Jack, we think we can hold two things in our mouths at once, but actually that's a fantasy. We can't taste the food while thinking about what we need to do later. Our mouths may be moving and the food might be swallowed, but there's no awareness of how the food tastes. Instead, we're switching back and forth between the planning and the tasting, like a dog going back and forth between a bone and a toy, not content to do just one thing at a time.
I'd like to offer as an alternative full-screen living. What's full-screen living? It's a life where we allow one thing to take up the entirety of our attention, going into full-screen mode like a video on your computer while allowing everything else to fade into the background. Let's take a look.
Full-screen computer work. Many long-time readers know I prefer full-screen distraction-free text editors like Write Room, Homewriter, or Q10. They fill up your screen, so there are no distractions as you write. It's just you and your text.
No notifications, no other tabs open, no other programs showing, no clock or icons. I'm writing this post in WordPress's full-screen editor at the moment, as well as using Chrome's presentation mode so that nothing is showing on the screen, but these words I'm typing, not even the menu bar. But full-screen work on the computer doesn't have to stop there. You can do almost anything in full-screen mode.
I read articles and blog posts using the Instapaper service. It strips as in all irrelevant page elements and leaves only the text. I watch videos in full-screen mode, online videos on YouTube or Vimeo, or once saved on my computer and iTunes. If I'm working in a browser tab, I'll pull that tab out in a new window so that it hides any other tabs that might be open.
Or I'll close all other tabs, save things I want to read later in Instapaper and close them, or make note on a to-do list of tasks I need to do that are represented by open tabs and close the tabs. When you read whatever task you're working on or video you're watching or article you're reading into full-screen mode, everything else fades into the background. You just have the one task in front of you, the one thing to read or write, and you aren't switching back and forth between bone and toy. This means you can fully focus, can fully savor the article, can fully give your attention to your work.
You do better when there's only one thing in your mouth or in your attention. Full-screen living. That's fine for computer work, but what about life in general? You can live exactly the same way.
If you're going to spend time with your child, don't switch between the child tab and the work tabs in the browser of your mind. Put your child into full-screen mode and let him take up all your attention and let work and everything else you need to do later fade into the background. You'll still get to the work when you're done with what you're doing with your child, but for now be fully in this one activity with this one person. When you're done with that, you can bring your work in a full-screen mode and let the rest of your life go into the background for the moment.
If you eat, let the food fill up the screen of your attention, not yours thinking about other things. If you're showering, let that fill your attention instead of planning. When you're brushing your teeth, let the conversation read argument you had earlier, fade away, and just brush your teeth. When you work, do one task at a time.
And don't just do one task at a time, but do that task with all your attention or as much as possible, and don't be thinking about the other tasks. The doing. Easier said than done, right? How do you let other things go when you are doing one thing?
How do you focus on your child or your food instead of your work? It takes practice. As with anything, when you first start practicing, you won't be great at it, but you'll get better with practice. Start today.
A great practice is sitting meditation where you do nothing but sit and maybe just pay attention to your breath. That's difficult as our minds tend to throw thought after thought at us. But noticing those thoughts can be a useful practice that is carried into all other activities in our lives. Beyond sitting, try mindful cleaning.
What you learn in sitting and cleaning will be applicable in every other full-screen activity you do each day. Full-screen living isn't necessarily easier than one where you're constantly switching between the tabs of your mind. It takes constant practice, and in fact, that practices every waking moment. But if we realize we can't have the bone and the toy in our mouth at the same time, then we realize that by giving up the toy, we'll enjoy the bone so much more.
It'll be fully tasted instead of stuffed into a mouth that can't taste it. You just listen to the post titled A Primer on Full-screen Living by Leo Babouta of ZenHabits.net. I'm constantly thinking about how to optimize my health, what supplements to take, hours of sleep, what my diet should focus on. Superpower finally takes the guessing out of it.
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So Leo's post reminds me of the David Kane article I narrated a few days back, maybe last week about sitting and being in the present moment. And what I mentioned at the end of that episode is how I'll let my mind wander during certain activities, like showering, because sometimes when I do that, I'll come up with great ideas. Ideas I wouldn't come up with if I purposely try to think of a great idea. And it's often left out of these mindfulness posts that the goal isn't to be present all the time, since that's impossible.
But he's simply giving you ideas of where you can practice being aware, present, and mindful, instead of doing formal sitting meditation practice. Mindful cleaning, mindful showering, being completely present in a conversation, actually listening. These are all different forms of a meditative practice, and will help you become better at seeing when your mind goes off the rails and let's a negative or unproductive thoughts cloud your mind. So all of these activities, including eating, they're simply different ways to practice meditation.
But that's just my take on it. I'll do it for today. Thank you for listening and sticking around until the end. Have a great weekend if you're listening in real time, and I'll see you tomorrow as usual, where you're optimal life.
Awaits. Hey, this is Dan from the Optimal Finance Daily Podcast, which is a lot like this show, except more focused on personal finance. Justin handpicks the best posts he can find from blogs and authors like Remit Safety, Mr. Money Moustache, and more, and I read them to you five days a week.
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