Happiness is not for Sissies

One of the key themes of the book The Undefeated Mind by Alex Lickerman is that it takes strength to be happy.  You need to be tough.  You need to be thick skinned.  Happiness is not for the timid.  You have to be bold and able to take a punch.

Although we genetically are born with a different starting point for how cheerful we are--what psychologists often refer to as a "happiness setpoint"--we will all suffer.  We will all have misfortunes.  Happiness requires resilience.  Dr. Lickerman describe two aspects to resilience:

1. The ability to thrive in the face of adversity
2. Persistence when encountering obstacles

Resilience, to Dr. Lickerman, is a strength we can cultivate.  His book describes the exercises that make you resilient.  They make you hardy.  Tough enough to stay happy when things don't go your way.

Clarify your personal mission in the various roles you play in life (career, family, etc.).  Make important commitments.  Expect victory but only through hard work overcoming plenty of obstacles.  Believe you can still be happy even after pain or loss.  Cultivate gratitude.  Help others.  These practices are the push-ups that give you the strength to stay happy even when things get tough.

Optimistic about the Outcome, Pessimistic about the Path

Optimistic about the outcome:  "I'm going to make it.  I know I've got the skill, the strength, and the patience to find a way to succeed."

Pessimistic about the path:  "I'll succeed, but it won't be easy.  I may find myself in some very difficult situations.  I might not always know at first what I should do next.  I might slip at times and might get scared.  I'll have to tap into my reserves of endurance, patience, and courage before I finally reach the top."

In his book The Undefeated Mind, Alex Lickerman describes his ideas for strengthening your ability to handle adversity.  One of his recommendations is to "expect obstacles".  He describes research showing that people who expect tasks to be difficult tend to persist when things to wrong while those who expect tasks to be easy give up easily.  He recommends what I see as a delicate balance between optimism and pessimism.  In some of his chapters he talks about making vows about your important goals.  In these chapters, I see him advocating optimism--confidence that for most of these vows you will prevail somehow, even if the outcome isn't exactly what you expected.  And in the "expect obstacles", I see him advocating pessimism at least about what he calls "task difficulty".

I think this is a brilliant and all to rare balance of being positive and being negative.  Most authors these days seem to push for nothing but positive thinking.  The worst cases, to me, are the ones who tell you to just visualize things the way you want them to be and then wait for the mysterious power of the universe to manifest your dreams.  Lickerman, instead, tells you to dream but then plan on a very tough road to reach that dream.  Better to be pleasantly surprised when you reach that dream easily than to get discouraged and give up the first time anything goes wrong.

Your Mission, If You Choose to Accept It . . .

According to The Undefeated Mind, by Alex Lickerman, defining your mission at work and at home can lead to more resilience in the face of life's upheavals.  Dr. Lickerman defines your mission as whatever you feel most excited about contributing to the world around you.

This mission will be different for everyone.  For me, when I'm at work, the "mission" that turns me on the most is to improve morale for the technicians who operate our production lines.  This ISN'T my job description.  I'm supposed to improve production results to improve profits, not morale.  But there is enough overlap that I can put a lot of my energy into reducing frustration and tedium for factory workers, into making them feel confident and skilled and in control, and this makes my work feel more meaningful and important to me than it would if I focused solely on manufacturing cost.  And having this sense of purpose makes it easy to cope with the inevitable project failures, budget cuts, difficult people, and other obstacles that we all encounter in our jobs.

I have different missions for the other roles I play in life outside of work.  My missions are unique for me, but they aren't special.  They are no better than what another person might choose for their own lives.  Alex Lickerman's advice is that, for each role you have in life--each context you find yourself in daily such as work and home--you think through the question "What is my mission here?   What way of contributing to the world outside myself is most fulfilling for me in this part of my life?"  And then keep reminding yourself about that mission every day.

The Undefeated Mind

When we moved my son into the University of Chicago a couple of weeks ago, one of the speakers at a session for parents was Professor Alex Lickerman, author of "The Undefeated Mind".  Professor Lickerman was discussing Student Health and Counseling Services at the University, but he also spoke about his"Resilience Project", a training program offered to all students that has been correlated to greater success at school and better results in several measures of well-being and happiness.

Because Professor Lickerman was a great speaker who even made College Health Insurance sound fascinating, I decided to buy his book.  I love it.

The core idea is that we can remain relatively happy as we experience the ups and downs of life if we never allow ourselves to be defeated.  If we never stop trying.  If we never stop looking for a new strategy to overcome adversity, even when every other strategy has failed, then we have not been defeated.

I've had some hard times at work in the last year.  I've tried different strategies to manage the people who are making my job so difficult and unpleasant.  Every new approach has failed.  At times I think I let myself feel defeated, as if with some of these people nothing was ever going to work.  But then I'd try a new strategy until I finally found something that seems to be working.

As I've read "The Undefeated Mind", I realize that I was most unhappy when I gave up hope, when I allowed myself to think that there was no way around these people, that I'd have to cave in and do work that was less than I was capable of and deliver results that were less than what mattered.  I was most unhappy when I was close to having a "Defeated Mind".  But when I kept thinking, "What if?" and kept brainstorming up more ways to get around the people who were holding me back, I eventually found some techniques that started to work.  I can see that this is what it means to have an "Undefeated Mind".  As long as I keep struggling, I haven't been defeated.

As Lickerman writes, "possessing an undefeated mind means never forgetting that defeat comes not from failing but from giving up."

Thrive

My oldest son, Mackenzie, will be starting as a freshman at the University of Chicago on Monday.  We moved him to his dorm last weekend and helped him get settled in.  It's been years since I'd seen him acting so excited, since I'd seen him approaching one person after another after another, striking up conversations so often that after just 2 days everywhere we walked on campus students were already calling him out by name.  All I could think of whenever I saw him interacting with the other students was, "He's going to thrive here!"

I'm still feeling euphoric, still feeling like he's about to start the best years of his life.  It also got me thinking about the relationship between your circumstances and your happiness, between your circumstances and whether or not you thrive.

There has been plenty of research suggesting that perhaps 60-70% of your happiness is NOT a function of your objective circumstances.  According to Positive Psychology researchers such as Sonya Lyubomirsky, we are born with "Happiness Setpoints" that explain much of the difference between those who are perpetually gloomy and those who are perpetually cheery.  Life happens and people may temporarily cheer up or get sad, but they often bounce back to their usual level of happiness.  The remaining 30-40% of our happiness is in our control and is affected by things like our social behavior, our activities, and our thought patterns.

So will my son really thrive in Chicago?  Is this just the temporary excitement of new circumstances?  I don't think so.  Sometimes circumstances change in a way in which their impact is usually fleeting.  Your girlfriend dumps you.  You get a raise at work.  You get a new iPhone.  But other life changes have a more lasting effect because they help you transform your social behavior, your activities, and your thought patterns.  They thus help you transform the 30-40% of your thoughts and actions directly raise or lower your happiness.

For the last 6 years, Mackenzie attended Walnut Hills High School, a school whose outstanding academics attracts students from all over the city.  Unfortunately, this creates a circumstance in which it is hard to spend time with the friends that you make at school.  It's not like when I went to my neighborhood high school and we could all see each other on weeknights or weekends.  At Walnut or any other great city "magnet" school, unless your parents endlessly drive you around, you better hope that many of your best school friends live in walking distance.  With very few exceptions, Mackenzie was not so lucky.  None of us regret his attending such a fine High School.  It's academic strengths are a big reason he was able to get into the prestigious University of Chicago.  But I think I see how the circumstances at Walnut may have held him back a bit.  I also saw last week how drastically different the social opportunities are for him at University of Chicago.  These are his kind of intellectual people, debating politics, philosophy, history--people from all around the world with fascinating backgrounds and cultures.  And they live with him in his dorm or within walking distance at other dorms.  And I feel how he can't believe his good fortune, how thrilled he is to engage with so many people, and I know that this isn't just something new and exciting.  He is going to thrive.

Poke at my Idea PLEASE

I've sometimes read that it's best to develop a plan from the ground up with others so that they "own" the plan as much as you do.  This may be ideal, but sometimes its too slow, especially when there are lots of people involved.  A friend of mine often seems to want to use the "ground up" approach, and I find that his meetings often don't get very far.

I continue to have the most luck when I make a proposal and solicit responses.  I want people to poke at my trial balloon, even if it bursts, because I know that once the proposal changes to incorporate other people's ideas, they start to buy into the plan.  I WANT the proposal to change.

These proposals work best when I continuously project that I want input.  I have to project that I will not be defensive, that I get excited when someone points out a better approach, even if it means I overlooked something critical or obvious.  If I project this right from the start, I think the other people in the room or on the phone can sense that I value their input.  It's safe to tell me whatever they really feel.  They start to engage and, as the dialogue continues, the plan get better and better and better.

Continue-Start-Stop

Last week, 15 of us met to brainstorm what changes we needed to have in our organization next year.  The meeting facilitator had us break out into two groups.  On various topics, such as "Tasks", "Rewards", "Structure", "Information Systems", we were supposed to collect feedback from each group.

The facilitator said we should structure our conversations by identifying what we should "Start", "Stop", and "Continue".  That's the normal way we collect feedback in our company:  start-stop-continue.  But I don't like that order.  The emphasis is wrong.  What should we START doing because we've been missing the boat?  What should we STOP doing because we've been screwing up?  The most important question is what should we CONTINUE doing because it's been working well?  What has been our strength?  What should we do more of because it brings out our best performance and results?

I was facilitating one of the two groups, and I insisted on changing the order and the emphasis:  Continue, Start, and Stop.  This seemed to energize people.  We spent our time appreciating the best things they were doing and defining plans to make these things even stronger next year.  And, when we talked about what to START doing, it tended to be things related to what we already have been doing well.  As far as what to STOP?  We often didn't get around to writing anything down, and that was OK with me.

Co-Creation

It's easy to come up with a plan by myself, but hard to "sell it" to everyone else involved in the plan.  One of the themes of Stomp the Elephant in the Office, by Steve Vannoy and Craig Ross, and their company Verus Global, is that people will more easily accept a proposal if it includes their ideas.  But how do you efficiently create a detailed plan with lots of other people?  It often feels like "too many chefs in the kitchen".  Then there are the jokes about camels being horses designed by committee . . . And there is Congress . . .

I've had some luck with floating trial balloons.  Make a proposal, ask for input, and pray for conflict.  I don't want silence.  I want to have my ideas attacked.  I want to hear that I've missed important details or that something I said won't work.  Or that I forgot something important.  Because every criticism is an opportunity to build trust with the group by saying, "Silly me!  You're absolutely right.  How about this revised proposal?"  I've just included somebody else's light bulb.

But trial balloons don't always work.  Sometimes there are situations where too much is at stake for too many people for anyone person to start with, "here's what I think we should do."  I'm in one of those situations at work right now.  We're trying to create our plans for next fiscal year (7/1/14 to 6/30/15) on a project that effects a lot of people at multiple locations around the country.  I don't own the overall project, but I floated a trial balloon for a new way to approach part of the work.  The response was lukewarm.  In hindsight, I think this is a case where the plan needs to be "co-created" by at least a few key players.

Based on another technique recommended by Verus Global, I've decided we need to start by asking key players in the project what worked for them last fiscal year.  The project has made great progress in the last 9 months.  We need to ask the leaders at each manufacturing site and each central corporate team:  "What accomplishments do you feel really good about from last year?  What do you think helped the most in getting there?"  If we do this, and if the plan for the coming year is builds on what people told us worked for them last year, then they will feel that the new plan builds on the things that brought them the most success last year.  They will feel that their ideas were included.

Just as important:  the plan is more likely to work.  Too often, people develop an action plan that doesn't consider "do more of what's already working".  The approach that starts with "what has worked before" sets you up to succeed in the future.

Weekly Writing Habits

Research shows that happiness grows if you write every week about things you are grateful for.  And it grows if you imagine an ideal future, if you write about short term goals, if you reflect on what is most important right now in each area of your life, and if you take the time to think through strategies.

But how can I remember to do ALL this writing and analysis regularly?  How can I keep track of it all?  I can't usually find the time to write about ALL these things every day.  If I have to write about different things on different days, how do I choose what to write about any given day?  And how can I be sure that, over time, I'm thinking through and writing about all these things in a balanced way?

For the last few months, I've had success using Microsoft One Note on my computer to help remember to write about different things each day of the week.  My new system makes it easy to ensure that I usually spend SOME time every week writing in each area.  If I'm super busy one day, I might miss the chance, for example, to write that week about what I'm grateful for.  But I'm unlikely to forget any topic 2 weeks in a row.  The balance is there, and I'm noticing benefits in how I feel and think.

Below is a screen shot from my "Journals" in Microsoft One Note. Sunday is "Sunny" for optimism: I write about best possible outcomes in the near future at work, at home, and in volunteer work.  Monday is "Milestones":  key things to accomplish soon.  Good thing to think about early in a work week.  Tuesday is "Truth":  what truths do I need to confront or communicate that I've resisted?  Wednesday is "Working":  what is working well in different parts of my life that I should do more of to get even more success?  Thursday is "Thanks":  what am I grateful for?  Friday is "Focus":  What is most important right now?  What should I give attention to at the expense of less important goals?  Finally, Saturday is "Strategy":  What are some of the strategies and plans that will move me toward my goals?

Keep the Needle, Lose the Haystack

It's hard to focus without a trash can.  I'm aiming to clear my mind and focus on one thing at a time.  To succeed, I need to clean out my closets, create empty space on my bookshelves, clear out the garage, and keep my email inbox well under 100 messages at all times.

The book It's All Too Much, by Peter Walsh, makes a strong case for peace of mind through decluttering.  The home or office will be full of distractions unless there is nothing in each room except those things that support the most important things you want to DO in that room.  Everything else needs to go.

When all that's left in each room is what matters to you, it's easier to do the things that matter to you.  When there is no clothing in the closet except what you actually WEAR more than once a year, you can more easily find your favorite pants, shirts, and shoes.  If you decide that you want to draw more often or read more often, you set up spaces where it's easier to find your sketchpads and easier to settle down with a good book and then your life fills with more of the life you want to live.

I think of it as keeping the needle and losing the haystack.

Another Reason to Welcome Conflict

Imagine if our courts were uncomfortable with conflict.  Imagine if--to avoid conflict--they didn't give everyone a chance to present their side of the story, to disagree with each other, to get emotional and confrontational.  Imagine if the judge and jury only heard one from one side--maybe just the prosecutor--before declaring a verdict and a sentence.

Chip and Dan Heath make this powerful example early in their book Decisive-How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work to illustrate one of the key requirements of good decision making:  seek out a variety of viewpoints before making a decision.  They say that the quality of your process for seeking out different points of view is more important than the quality of your THINKING!  How logical you are, how analytical, how clever--none of that matters if you don't make sure that people with different points of view get a chance to speak their minds.

So this is another reason we should be happy when other people disagree with us, when other members of the group have different ideas.  Just as we expect our courts to give all sides a hearing because we know that this increases the odds of a good decision, we should welcome conflict and objections to our points of view at home or at work.

What's working?

Another thing I learned from the training from Verus Global (verusglobal.com) that I took a few weeks ago is to focus on what seems to be working.  What strategies or techniques are getting me what I want?  At work, dealing with a challenging relationship, am I getting better responses with emails?  Text messages?  Phone calls?  At home, are some strategies leading to harmony while others lead to conflict?

This is an important subset of positive thinking and focus.  It isn't gratitude.  It isn't thinking of all the good things that have happened recently--all the good outcomes.  It isn't optimism.  It isn't imagining myself achieving my short and long term goals.  It isn't affirmation--thinking about my best qualities to strengthen my self image.  All of these are extremely important aspects of positive thinking.  They all support mental health, happiness, and success.  But this isn't what it means to think about what is working.

Thinking about what is working is the aspect of positive thinking that focuses on PROCESS.  What METHODS are working. What HABITS and APPROACHES are getting me what I want?

This is where I think about my volunteer work and say, "Good things seem to happen for my neighborhood when I ask for help from Cincinnati government officials."  I think about a very tough relationship at work and realize, "He cancels our meetings, gets irritated by text messages or phone calls, but I've had SOME luck with short, polite emails.  Need to do more of those."  At home, I think about balancing my personal goals, my volunteer work, the needs of my wife, and the needs of my kids.  Then I realize, "There's more harmony when I start each weeknight or each weekend day with an all out focus on wife and family.  Afterwards, I sense that my family feels supported, and that they believe I have 'earned' time for my other priorities.  As long as I cycle back and forth between full focus on their needs and full focus on my own needs, everybody seems happy."

Awareness of what's working and what isn't may be easy for some people and difficult for others.  For me, it is NOT automatic.  It's an awareness I need to apply consciously and with effort.  But when I do it well, I find that it makes life a lot easier.  Becoming aware of and emphasizing those things that are working is like becoming skilled at finding shortcuts--finding the easy way out--so that I can get what I want in life with less effort and struggle.

Relishing Conflict

My last post was about the commitment I've made to getting something positive from every interaction.  The commitment was inspired by the training I received from Verus Global corporation (Verusglobal.com) that was founded by the authors of "Stomp the Elephant in the Workplace" and other books about creating a positive culture at work or at home.  Of all the interactions I've had since this training, there is one kind that appears over and over again that starts off as stressful but ends up as constructive if I handle it correctly.  This is the interaction that occurs when someone objects to one of my proposals.

It happens with my wife, my kids, my volunteer work, and it happens over and over and over again at work.  I have an idea.  I mean well.  I think it's a fine idea.  But someone shoots it down.  Sometimes they aren't very nice about it.  They not only shoot down the idea, but sometimes they seem to be questioning my motives or even my integrity.

I generally find myself welcoming these objections.  I know that almost always the other person means well.  Even if, in some cases, they could have found a nicer way to make their point, almost everyone I know at home or at work who disagrees with me is usually primarily driven by some value, belief, or principle they truly believe.  If I sense sarcasm, it might be my imagination, but even if it isn't, the sarcasm is secondary. What is usually primary is that the other person just doesn't agree.  And if I focus on that core motivation--honest disagreement--then there is a huge opportunity to move ahead.

It's even better if the other person's comments are public.  Because now it's time to react.  If I look past any sarcasm or any words that "hooked" me emotionally, I can re-evaluate my position.  If I still think I'm right, I can explain my position respectfully and persuasively and gain more support from the group that is involved in the discussion.  If, instead, the other person has taught me to see things completely differently and I'm now aligned to their point of view, I gain trust with the group by humbly telling this to the other person and thanking them for their input.  And if, as is usually the case, I find myself with a new proposal that blends both of our points of view, the other person becomes an ally and the group respects the compromise that we've developed.

I've seen this happen dozens of times in the last few weeks.  For example, I'm the President of the community council for my neighborhood in Clifton, and there were over 100 emails going back and forth about my proposal to declare to City Hall what was the "best use" of a vacant property.  This was controversial because an overly aggressive definition of "best use" could scare away so many developers that the property would remain vacant for years.  But every negative email felt to me like an opportunity to bring the group together on a final resolution.  With each objection, the resolution was "tweaked" until finally I felt it was far more effective than it would have been without all the conflict.  I actually found myself looking in my Inbox and feeling glad whenever there was another objection.  I'd often feel a sting if I felt there was some sarcasm or anger in the objection, but the sting was not as strong as the feeling I had that by the time I responded we'd be in a better position than we were before someone said, "NO!!!  I DON'T AGREE!!!"

No Bad Conversations

A few weeks ago, during a training class, I was challenged to get something positive out of every interaction, every day.  Some interactions might not feel good.  There may be anger, disappointment, conflict, and stress.  But the challenge is to always get something positive out of the experience, to grow in some way and help the other person grow.  In the words of the trainers, to somehow use the interaction to "activate potential".

The training was called "Pathways to Leadership".  It was facilitated by trainers from Verus Global.  Here's a link to their website:  verusglobal.com.  Verus Global is led by Craig Ross and Steve Vannoy, co-authors of several books including Stomp the Elephant in the Office.

Verus Global doesn't use the term "no bad conversations".  That's my description because it resonates with me.  Verus Global uses, instead, the term "Best Ever Principle", which they say is to use your "ability to realize and activate potential in every interaction, every day."  As soon as I heard about this concept, I kept thinking about how I could possibly do this in the more difficult interactions in my life.  Making a phone call to someone who I know is angry.  Responding to an email that is needlessly insulting.  Dealing with sarcasm.  Meeting with someone who usually will not listen.  Confronting someone on a team who is not doing their part.  These are the conversations I've routinely avoided, even when they are the conversations I need to have to make progress.

I think the trainers are correct.  It IS possible to find a way to grow in these interactions.  If nothing else, there is the growth that comes from calmly expressing what I feel and what I believe with the best possible intentions and growth that comes from listening intently to the other person's point of view.  Moving past any negativity while seeking to understand the other person and always seeking to make the situation better.  I can't imagine many situations where this approach would fail to lead to SOMETHING positive.

So, for the last few weeks, I've mentally prepared myself to get the best out of ANY meeting or phone call, especially the ones that could be difficult.  I've kept the "Best Ever Principle" in mind when responding to a nasty email or getting ready for a potential conflict.  And it's worked very well so far.

The Opposite of Multitasking

The opposite of multitasking is to settle your body, settle your mind, settle your environment, and settle your attention on what is left.  Settle your attention on the emotions, thoughts, and bodily sensations that remain.  When you think about something you need to get done at work today, you say, "Ah!  Thoughts about work," and then return your focus to the present moment.  If any other thoughts arise, you again notice this but gently return to the present.

In short, the opposite of multitasking is meditation.

e-Multitasking

Sometimes when I'm working through my emails, and I'm ONLY working through my emails, I'm STILL multitasking.  It LOOKS like I'm focused.  I'm not texting, not instant messaging, not on the phone.  The TV is off.  Stereo is off.  And if you could read my mind you'd see that I'm not even THINKING about anything except the emails on hand.  So how can this be multitasking?

Anyone who is multitasking is really doing one thing at a time.  What makes the activity "multitasking" is that the person is, by choice, switching back and forth between tasks far more often than necessary at the expense of their concentration, focus, and effectiveness.   If I multitask with email, I choose to switch from one message to another far more often than necessary and often end up with little progress getting through my inbox.

Here is an email.  What should I do with it?  Delete it?  File it?  Respond to it?  Figure out a future task to address the email and record this task in planner?  If I switch to a new email before I've taken the time to finish this process, I've chosen to switch my attention too soon.  I'm most likely to do this when its hard to decide what I'm going to do about an email.  But each new email presents a new situation on a new subject with new people involved.  It's a tough adjustment to make and if I needlessly jump quickly from one to the next, this is no different from needlessly jumping back and forth between work emails, texting, creating a report, and planning for the weekend.  I'll only succeed at ridding myself of multitasking if I take email multitasking as seriously as other more blatant multitasking habits.

Multitasking at its Best

Everything I've read says multitasking is bad, and I'm sure it often is.  In fact, I've decided to make it a priority to reduce how often I multitask.  I've learned from books such as Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister, that it's best to focus on changing just one habit at a time, even if it takes a few months.  Last year I first focused on driving down the number of emails in my inbox that were distracting me like a huge pile of unread paper mail on a desk.  After forming new email habits, I shifted to forming a habit of consciously relaxing at least 10 times per day, even if just for a minute or two.  Now I've decided to, much more often, choose mindfully as my day progresses what is my current top goal, the number one activity to which I want to devote my attention and to stop trying to do so many other things at once that I do none of them well.

But do I want to get rid of ALL multitasking?  When I use the treadmill in the basement, I love to turn on the TV, log into Netflix, and watch an action movie, comedy, or other "guy flick" that I'd never be able to convince my wife to watch.  I'm doing two things at once:  exercising and watching a movie.  But I'm enjoying it much more than if I just walked briskly while staring at the wall.  Similarly, I love to listen to Audiobooks while driving to work.  Two things at once.  Is it multitasking?  Even if it is, where's the harm?

There are purists who would say that even this multitasking is wrong.  When driving, drive mindfully, with precise awareness of how the car responds to the steering wheel, taking in all the sights and sounds--going beyond paying enough attention to go from Point A to Point B and, instead, making the drive an opportunity to be present, to be mindful.  Another form of meditation that leads to relaxation and calm.  When walking on the treadmill, feel the muscles, the accelerated heartbeat, the deep and fast breathing.  Feel the sweat.

Of course driving and exercising CAN be forms of meditation.  But do they always need to be?  I use other times during the day to meditate, but if I didn't listen to audiobooks in the car, I'm sure I'd never find the time to listen to them and I'd miss out on my favorite way to educate myself.

I've been trying to figure this out today:  when is multitasking bad and when is it perfectly OK?  I now have a theory that feels right to me:  

• Multitasking is fine when your highest priority task is the only one that is consuming most of your concentration, attention, and effort.  If you can do other things at the same time with little to no effort, then it can be OK to multitask.
• I can drive to work on Auto-Pilot. When I'm driving to work and listening to an Audiobook, I can apply most of my mind to the Audiobook and still find my way to work
• I can walk on a treadmill mindlessly and focus my mind entirely on the movie I'm watching.

Multitasking is bad mainly when I'm taking on multiple tasks that each demands concentration.  When I drive in an unfamiliar city while talking on a cellphone and trying to appreciate music on the radio I've taken on 3 tasks that demand conscious effort, thought, and concentration.  When I'm at my desk at work and keep jumping back and forth between emails, phone calls, and working on a presentation, I do all of these things poorly.  This is the kind of habitual multitasking I hope to weed out of my life in the weeks or months to come.