Arjuna and the Bird Eye ,Focus on Multitasking

Arjuna and the Fish Eye

Here’s a little story from the Hindu epic Mahabharata, about the renowned archery master Dronacharya training the Pandava brothers in the art and skill of archery. Once, when the five Pandava brothers and Karna were assembled for an archery instruction session with Guru Drona, he tied a wooden bird high on a tree above a pool of water, and asked each student, one by one, to take the archer’s stance. He instructed them to aim their bow and arrow at the bird’s eye, while looking only at its reflection in the water below. As each student came along and took his turn, Guru Drona made them pause in the stance and asked, “Son, what all do you see?” The oldest, Yudhisthira, answered, “The sky, the tree, the …,” and before he could finish, Drona stopped him and replaced him with the next boy.

Bhima answered, “The branch of the tree, the bird, the…,” and met the same fate. Even Karna was asked to step aside. When Arjuna, the ace-archer, was asked the same question, he stated without hesitation, “I see the eye of the bird” And Guru Drona exclaimed with delight, “Shoot!” and Arjuna’s arrow unwaveringly pierced right through the eye of the bird.

You know, a similar paradox is when you are learning to sing and play music, or to drive for that matter. When first beginning to drive, you have to focus on each of the separate aspects – pressing the clutch, then the gear change (for the non auto drivers ), then the accelerator – whatever. But after sometime, your body lets you multitask all these easily – it’s basically the power of repitition – of having created enough muscle memory to make the task effortless. Similarly, when you first begin to learn to play an instrument say the guitar, and you have always been a vocalist – you tend to not be able to distinguish the chords separate from the lyrics/ melody. But after some training, you are able to focuson the chords such that your ear hears the notes, the chords, as well as the beats of the percussion instrument.

This is also how you resolve the apparent conflict between proponents of focus vs those of multitasking – let’s face it, in today’s world, multi tasking is an unavoidable necessity – I think ALL of us have worked multiple projects together; heated up food to feed the kids with a phone stuck to one ear participating in telecons, OR practiced our vocal music while driving. But, the “focus” helps you decide how much time to spend on which activity – the one that wins is obviously the one you NEED to do MOST – ie, that which someone else cannot do; that which has maximum impact on profitability or client satisfaction; that which just requires the maximum time to do…etc…the effective manager actually therefore manages to combine the best of both worlds – multitask, and yet focus.