The Twelve Monotasks

Do One Thing at a Time to Do Everything Better

By: Thatcher Wine

Narrated by: Thatcher Wine, Dan Bittner

Reclaim your attention, productivity, and happiness with this inspirational book which teaches the importance of keeping your focus to one familiar task at a time.

Neurological research definitively and repeatedly concludes that there is a bottleneck in our cognitive function—when we do more than one thing at a time, we become less efficient and more error‑prone. Our systems get overloaded and we crash. In fact, we are actually wired to monotask—to give dedicated focus to one task at a time.

Whether you call it monotasking, mindfulness, being present, or any other name, the goal is the same: Give your focus to one thing at a time and do it with your all. When we do things with our full focus, completely tuning our bodies and our brains in to one activity—like reading a book, listening to someone in a conversation, or paying attention to our surroundings while we go for a walk—amazing things can happen.

Drawing on research in psychology, neuroscience, and mindfulness, The Twelve Monotasks breaks down twelve everyday activities to strengthen our “monotasking” muscle so that we can rebuild and expand our attention spans. When we focus on what we are doing, where we are and who we are with, we can rediscover our ability to enjoy life, connect with others, and succeed in all that we do. And in the end, it makes us happier, more productive, and more present—in all aspects of our lives.

Critic reviews

“Relinquishing our engagement with multiple goals and dedicating our attention to a specific task rewards us with increased productivity and a markedly reduced sense of stress. By enhancing our monotasking skills we can more deeply experience and benefit from the most fundamental activities of our lives. Thatcher Wine gifts us with the tools to rein in our distractibility, allowing us to more richly participate in all that we do.”—David Perlmutter, MD, author of Grain Brain, and Brain Wash

“The Twelve Monotasks shows how we're not fully living up to our potential when we multitask and offers practical steps for what we can do about it. Offering key learnings around important daily activities including sleeping, eating, and walking, Thatcher Wine explains the deep and profound need for monotasking and how mastering it can lead to a more present, healthier, and happier you.”—Frank Lipman, MD, author of Better Sleep, Better You

“Captivating, informative, and beautifully written, The Twelve Monotasks is a potential game changer for how we can give more of our attention to the things that really do matter. Thatcher’s entrepreneurial and personal experience makes him the perfect guide to monotasking. It’s a book worth your time.”—Nate Berkus, author of The Things That Matter

Potential life changing book!

This book will change how you think about your to-do list, how you approach your work, and how you show up in your personal life. There are so many original ideas here, it’s really a game changer and unlike anything I have read or listened to in the self improvement genre.

Wonderful book!

Just implementing some of these ideas daily has been extremely beneficial! Thank you for giving my life some guidance!

Meh.

Sleep! Walk! Think! Create! Learn! Teach! Eat! Play! And other obvious things to do daily. I didn't really get that much out of this book, and I had to listen to it at 1.75x speed because it just started to drag along. The narration is great, but the content made it so hard to monotask listening to this audiobook.