The Recovered Life Show

Lane Kennedy (00:00):
That's what multitasking does. It gets us stuck. It keeps us far from our dreams, right? We get sober and we like, imagine our lives best recovered life. But then we're like, oh, I'm still in the minutia in the junk. Like, no, if you just do one thing at a time and cross things off the list, you start to feel empowered and you start to become this recover, like this really strong person in recovery, where people are like, what's going on with what's going on with him. That's cool. Look at all the stuff he's doing.

Announcer (00:35):
You're listening to the recovered life show the show that helps people in recovery live their best recovered lives. And here is your host. Damon, Frank,

Damon Frank (00:45):
Welcome back to the recovered life show. I am pleased to be joined today by lane Kennedy lane is a recovered life contributor and mindfulness and meditation expert. How you doing lane?

Lane Kennedy (00:56):
Hi, Damon's great to be with you today.

Damon Frank (00:58):
Good to be with you. Uh, look, this is an epic episode. I have really been looking forward to mm-hmm I have to tell you. And I'm so thrilled. We're in 2022 mm-hmm and one of the things on my new year's resolutions get rid of multitasking.

Lane Kennedy (01:14):
Yeah. Everybody is multitasking. I think when, uh, the pandemic hit, you know, mothers had to multitask everything. Their whole life became about that. Um, fathers stuck in their office now, like every, everything everybody's become a multi multitasker and I don't think it's working

Damon Frank (01:35):
Lane. Why did I ever think I could multitask? Uh, look, you know, looking back, it has never worked for me. No, I, I, I feel like it's just like a, you know, those movies, like where you see people offroading, like you'll see this on ESPN and the Jeep is just stuck in the mud. Yeah, yeah. Spining yeah. That's what ends up. It seems like a good idea. Why does this seem like such a good idea? And we're so attracted to it. Mm-hmm but yet at the end of the day, the results just really suck.

Lane Kennedy (02:02):
It, it, it, they really, it doesn't work. Our brains are not evolved to multitask, you know, only. Okay. So there's 2.5% of the population. Actually, they can, they're effective at it. That's not a lot of people. That's not that that's not me. And you like, it's not how we're made to do things. Our brains are actually made to really focus on one thing at a time. And when we find ourselves bouncing from one thing to the next, uh, we lose, uh, creativity. We actually lose our focus. We are pro productivity goes down, uh, our cognitive ability drops. So multitasking is not, is not for us. We're

Damon Frank (02:54):
Not made that way. I, I blame, I, I blame radio at first for this back in the day, it used to be radio where I have radio in the background. Yeah. And, you know, look sometimes, but

Lane Kennedy (03:03):
Radio is okay, I'm just gonna say radio is okay. Yeah.

Damon Frank (03:06):
But then it went to YouTube and then it went to right. Like, and I, and I noticed something lane and I don't know if a lot of your clients tell you this, but I found like the other day I didn't have my cell phone and I found that I wasn't doing five things at one time. Yeah. And I felt very uncomfortable about it. no, right. I was just like the, oh my gosh. Like, this is like such a weird feeling. And I was like, oh, you know what? I can actually concentrate. I was doing a little long project. Yeah. I was like, I can actually concentrate on what I'm doing in front of me. And the project turned out great. And honestly, I was fulfilled. I had a sense of accomplishment. Mm-hmm at the end of it.

Lane Kennedy (03:45):
So what I'll do when I have a client, one of the first things that we will do is you can go into your iPhone. If you have an iPhone, I'm not sure about the Androids, but you can go in and you can check how many times you actually pick up your phone and you can see. So most people right now are in the hundreds just saying, and what I'll do is I will challenge them to put their phone away for several hours. And it's uncomfortable. Everybody has this adverse reaction, like, oh, I can't do that at, but then what happens is that they get so much done as a result of not picking up that phone. And it's, it's just become habit. Now. Like we wear it on our bodies. Right. And we it's, we gotta see something. There's an email waiting, but really there's no email necessary.

Lane Kennedy (04:38):
My husband actually said to me, he's like, did you respond into the email? And I'm like, no, I don't need to respond. Nobody needs my attention right now. So I always ask people, the other thing I do is I ask people to wait 24 hours. You know, my husband's like what? Like, yeah, just have people start waiting. You be in control of your time. You be in control of those responses is because answering a quick response, like an email like that. If you're on the phone at the same time, or you're trying to manage your child or your dog, and then you hit send, and that thought wasn't complete. That could be devastating.

Damon Frank (05:18):
Huge. And you know what, and I think in the recovery community, there is a, a, a double down moment for people in early recovery, right? Like, yeah. Yes. You definitely want to put a pause on everything that you do. There were so many great things that you just said there. I gotta unpack I gotta, I gotta unpack these Lynn. Um, one, the phone. I, I, I just it's. I, I hear so many people say now, like, Hey, I'm 60 years old and I must be ADHD. And I'm like, no, I don't think you're ADHD. I just think that you're addicted to your phone. Yeah. Right. You're addicted to that instant response. And I love this whole thing about like, what you told your husband about like, Hey, is a response really needed here. and who controls whose time? And this is, this is the thing about recovery that I think is a game changer with what you do with mindfulness and recovery, because you start claiming back that time. Yes. Right. You get more time outta the investment. Not less time when mindfulness and meditation

Lane Kennedy (06:16):
It's we have blurred the lines. Right? All of our relationships, business pleasure, family, it's all become very blurry and everybody expects a response. And that puts so much pressure on us. It's like, I can't even create a clear thought when I'm under that kind of pressure. So that's why I, you know, ask my clients to put hard boundaries in line. That's why I put hard boundaries because I wanna be able to respond effectively and give the response that's needed. That's that's going to be honest and truthful. Right. And when we're multitasking, who knows how I'm gonna answer,

Damon Frank (06:58):
There's doing. And then there is successful doing right. Actually doing something. And it was funny. One of my friends pointed out, um, and he actually showed me on the phone. Actually, he showed me little videos of people. He said, you know, the most successful people in life, the men and women who are the most successful, uh, they're not on their phone all the time. Somebody else is using their phone. They're deep into conversations with people. Yes. They get really deep. They go very deep into one channel or one thing that they're doing. And they become very successful at it. And they also know how to drop things that aren't yes. Uh, successful for them, right? Yes. That they know that's like, you know what, like I could be doing better things. Like I can like laundry. I know how to do laundry. Right. But like the investment for me, it's it, it's, it's better for me to be really focused on something I'm world class on that can generate revenue that somebody else can do the laundry. That's just an example.

Lane Kennedy (07:53):
Right? Correct. Yes. That's a, that's, that's an, that's a good example.

Damon Frank (07:59):
So everybody hates laundry. Everybody

Lane Kennedy (08:02):
Hates laundry, but it has to get done. Okay. It has to get done just like the dishes and the sink. It has, they have to get done. But if you're on a work call, I'm going to go back to work call. Or if you're on a recovery call and somebody is, um, thinking about drinking, you don't wanna be doing the dishes or your laundry and half attention. Right. Your attention is like, some of your attention is going into doing the laundry. Instead of being on the phone, being very clear with the person who's thinking about drinking or making a decision about, you know, your, the company. So there has to be lines drawn, or it's just gonna become, again, this muck, this like convoluted, confusing, um, output from you. And nobody wants that. Nobody wants it. It's it's not, um, it's not good. And we're in 2022. Yeah. So let's be clear mind.

Damon Frank (09:04):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, a friend of mine said something that was great. He said, multitasking is so 1987 to, to me, you know? And he was like, look, the science is there, the neurosciences there, the, and you know, when he's in recovery and he was just like saying, you know, this just does not work for me anymore. And I'm at that point too, where it no longer, you know, I still, I, I gotta be honest land. I still bite at the illusion that I can do five things at once, because I think it's a time compression, but it's not a, I I've realize now I've grown up in my maturity that it's not a time compression. It's time suck for me. Mm-hmm so I, I have to ask you, I, I want it because I know people are listening to this and like, it, lane. That sounds great. But how in the, how do I start practicing that? How do I do it? What's the first step that I do to stop multitasking because I done 20 years, 30 years, or whatever of multitasking,

Lane Kennedy (09:58):
Right? The, so the first thing I will do with a client is I get rid of the phone, right? That's and now we have, excuse me, we have the devices connected to the phone, and then we have an iPad and we have screens everywhere. So I ask people to just work on one device and put everything else away. That's ground zero. The next thing is I will have people go back to pen and paper and do a to-do list. I, it sounds so elementary, but that hard copy task list. One thing at a time works, laundry top of the list, just get it done, get it outta the way. Payroll, create content, grocery shopping, one thing at a time. And then suddenly at the end of your shift or four hours or six hours, you you're like, I scratched everything off the list. There's a sense of a comp without that list, you don't even know what's happened. You forgot about the laundry because you got so deep on doing your payroll taxes or something, right? Like it's tax seasons coming up. So people are gonna be head down trying to figure that out and then nothing else gets done. So when we'd have that nice checklist, check it off then at is a game changer.

Damon Frank (11:20):
I love that. I love that. You know, I'm a, I'm a very big, uh, proponent of win first, then play. Yeah. And I, you know, I found lane it, the, the, the, the, the deep, dark secret that most people don't talk about in recovery, in, in sobriety mm-hmm is that many people overdo they're addicted to doing. Yeah. Because they really don't know what they want. And they're afraid to say that they don't know what they want. Yeah. Yeah. Because they're like, they keep hearing in 12 step meetings and everything. It's like, well, you know what? I got sober and God probably doesn't want me to just sit here. So I should be doing something. Yeah. But they've never really taken the time to sit down to say like, Hey, how can I be of service? Like, mm-hmm how am I gonna be? How, how, how is this gonna work for me? Is this economically gonna work for me? Mm-hmm what do I really want? Want outta my work or personal relationships? right. No. And they, and most people do not know what they want. So they, they use this overdoing. Yep. Yep. To try to compensate that somehow it's gonna get them to a place where they're gonna figure out what they want, but what they really get, what I find is a lot of what they don't want. Right?

Lane Kennedy (12:31):
Yeah. Confusion, confusion, confusion. Yeah. So I think there's something to be said about knowing your worth and your value and people forget, and they don't know. And so that's part of the work of like putting everything away and getting back to basics. I think 20, 22 is a year to just get back to who we are. Right. We are human beings here having this spiritual experience and putting pen to paper and writing things down. Like this is what I value in my life. Like I value family time. So if I'm multitasking and at the end of the day, I've got nothing really completed. Then my interactions with my family are not gonna be great. I'm not gonna be satisfied with life. So understanding your worth and your value is so important because it, it will force you to put the multitasking to the side because you're, you're gonna want to be a part of your family and want, wanna be a part of whatever that, and I'm bringing the family up as just one example, but knowing your worth and your values is huge as we start this new year, it's

Damon Frank (13:45):
Key. It's key because, um, you know, I think this whole work home balance thing too, and look, that's all that, when you, when you tap into lane, you start talking about this dirty word that I hate, which is balance. Yeah. Right. I remember in college, I, I, I was involved in this, uh, organization. The whole thing was like becoming the balanced man or whatever, and it sounded great, but it was just like balance. Isn't like, it's not something that I'm attracted to. Right? Like P people typically that are in recovery are not BA like we don't like balance. No, we don't like balance. And multitasking allows us to really dive in and actually complete something. And I've found by not multitasking. That is where the balance starts to come from. Yeah.

Lane Kennedy (14:33):
Yeah. So people in recovery are very, all over the place. Unbalanced, go, go, go, go, go multitasking. Uh, it it's too much. Right. And what we crave and we don't recognize is that sense of calm. Like everybody loves calm. Everybody does. Everybody loves to sit down and watch Netflix and chill out. Am I right? I mean, everybody wants to zone out. Well, when you're practicing mindfulness and having a meditation practice, you're in that zone when you're multitasking, you're so far from that zone, you're not even near it. So making that commitment to yourself to just do one thing at a time, gets you closer to that zone. Right. And in that zone is where we have those great insights. And that's when we feel really connected to the people that we love or our dog, right. We're just chill. That's where we that's. I know people in recovery, they wanna get into that zone and they think multitasking is gonna be the answer. Cause they gotta get it done. No. So opposite.

Damon Frank (15:47):
And really look, all of us that are, if you're listening to this, you're watching this, you know, that really recovery, the really, the goal for most people. And I think everybody has this in common in recovery is that they want to be able to successfully live in the here and now. Yeah. And that's why I wanted to do this episode with you. And this is such great service. Thank you lane. Because, because I hear this all the time about multitasking. So if you're listening to this, right. And, and you're a chronic, uh, multitasker. Yep. And you just can't focus on, like, you just feel like your life's being sucked away. Right. Is like, I really listen in this episode again, because there so many really, you you've really laid out a plan here for people to jump off of the wheel. Right. Because if, if you're, if you win the rat race, you're still a rat. You're still a rat and you, so you don't want be a rat. Right. And so no one got sober. No, one's going down the recovery path because they want to be stuck. Right.

Lane Kennedy (16:53):
And that's what multitasking does. It gets us stuck. It keeps us far from our dreams. Right. We get sober and we like, imagine our lives as best recovered life. But then we're like, oh, I'm still in the minutia in the junk. Like, no, if you just do one thing at a time and cross things off the, you start to feel empowered and you start to become this recover, like this really strong person in recovery where people are like, what's going on with what's going on with him. That's cool. Look at all the stuff he's doing. Right. And it, and then you have this conversation of like, well, how did you get it all done? And it's, I did it just one thing at a time. One thing at a time changes your life. Just like we're drinking. We stop drinking and everything changes

Damon Frank (17:41):
Lane. This has been an amazing episode. Guys. If you wanna find out more about lane, I'm gonna put a link in the show notes here. So you can, you can just click on it and find out more about her, her meditation and mindfulness practice. Thank you so much for coming on the show today and, uh, sharing your wisdom with us. Thank you. Thanks for

Announcer (17:59):
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