Tom Quackenbush and other vision improvement authors have written about “central fixation of the mind”, doing one thing to completion before starting on something else. My sense is that Bates would scorn the idea of multi-plexing, doing many tasks at once, instead urging you to focus on one at a time. Like shifting my vision from point to point to point, I can shift my attention from one task to another, but trying to do both tasks at the same time just leads to frustration and mistakes. Slowly, I am learning to perform and see this way, that I actually get more done and see more clearly than when I try to do and see everything at once. When I’m reasonably calm, this is much less of a challenge. However, when I’m tired or stressed this is more difficult for me. I can fall into that old default pattern of rushing to do more and more, gobbling one task and doing the minimum before I race to start another, often before I’m completely done with the first. This can get almost addictive, each near-completion feeding the desire for another task to begin, a never-ending spiral of more, more, more — look how productive I am! (Until I crash from exhaustion.) When I’m tired, I use my eyes this way too, falling back into my lifelong pattern — each time I can see a detail, however blurry, I grab for another but don’t let go of the first, trying to expand my clear visual field wider and wider. Of course things get blurry fast, and I finally realize that I have to slow down and look at details, making my shifts smaller, to get any clarity.
David wrote on iblindness recently
…people with poor vision aren’t in the habit of shifting their attention a short enough distance on a regular basis, so they don’t necessarily automatically start doing so in the process of searching for details. They mainly only do larger shifts, and if they start to do smaller ones it’s going to soon feel “wrong” because it isn’t what they’re used to.
This is me: when I first started practicing with the eye chart and knew I was supposed to shift, I shifted all the way across the chart! Smaller shifts do give me more clarity, but I have to consciously remember to do them — this is still not my automatic habit. So I need to keep practicing, until this is my new Normal. Tom Quackenbush wrote about having a Starers Anonymous hotline, and sometimes I feel like I should be in a 12-step support group. Hi, I’m Nancy and I try to see everything at once! The first step to recovery is recognizing that I have a problem, I suppose. It’s frustrating how entrenched my old vision habits are, especially when I get tired. At least I know what to do: today I gave myself a headache trying to see while driving in the overcast gloom, and completely cured it (and my attitude) with palming. Little victories are better than none at all!
DreamerSight 
Hi Nancy!
Doing many things at the same time is so much straining that even multiplexing have understood it: Only one information at a time can be transmitted. As my teacher in electronic said once, a data selector/multiplexer is very useful if later in your life you work for someone (especially in some countries) who want to do bombs and want to save on wire at the same time.
I think that it’s also about having the head on what you are doing, more than having some tasks not completed to do. When someone do something while thinking to something else, many errors happens and it’s hard to be efficient. I guess that it is why I have better results when I palm right after waking up. I have not started (yet) to worry about everything I have to do and if I can start to palm fast enough to avoid thinking to what I have to do I can relax enough to remove most of the tension I produced while sleeping.
Merry Christmas!
-Alexandre
Alexandre,
Yes, I agree with you that this is a lot about attention. I wrote this post mostly to remind me what a bad vision day can be like, and that I know how to do the right thing instead. I also agree with you about palming first thing in the morning. I meditate in bed sitting up as soon as I wake up, like you said before I start to worry about the tasks of the day. If I wait until later, my mind can be pretty full and it’s a lot harder to calm it.
You have a good Christmas too.
Nancy
I definitely use the idea of focusing on one thing best when cooking at school or home. I am often cooking the main item and one or two side dishes all at the same time. If I try to focus on all items equally, I just get stressed out and run around the kitchen too much. If I focus on only one item, I am likely to burn something. The best way is to focus on one food at a time while keeping the other items in mind and checking them at intervals.
I’ve also noticed the importance of small shifts lately. It seems too obvious, but the only way one can see small details is with short shifts on those specific parts of an object. It makes sense to see details in this way, but I’m just used to looking at objects either with large shifts or by trying to see the whole object equally at the same time. I’m glad that simple things like breathing mindfully or palming can bring such quick relief for the strain accumulated from bad vision habits. 🙂
Mark,
Hi — I like the image of cooking several dishes at once, giving full attention to each for a short time, as a metaphor for looking at things. Many myopes who hear “look at one thing at a time” panic that they’ll miss something else important, and resist this, continuing their attempt to see everything at once. You don’t have to look at one thing for an hour! Important things in your peripheral vision can grab your attention even if you’re focused on something else. I’m sure if one of your pots boiled over (not that this would ever happen) when your focus was elsewhere you’d realize it!
Yes, I need to keep reminding myself to shift a small distance, changing my familiar habit of not shifting at all, or only a large distance. I’m looking forward to this becoming more automatic. Have a merry Christmas!
Nancy
Hey!
I often feel that when I do chart work and achieve a nice level of relaxation through it, it affects my mind as much as anything else, and makes me more focused. I wish I could keep that for longer afterwards 🙂
It is my feeling that my eyes tend to dart around all the time, they cannot focus on one detail they jump to see everything. But that’s not shifting obviously, and it’s rather straining. I feel my first step still at the moment is to relearn to focus on a single detail even for longer period without losing interest and going somewhere else. That relaxes me so much when I achieve that, and gives me clearer vision and more mind focus. What do you think about that? do you also notice something of this kind?
Fuoco,
Hi. When I first started doing the chart a couple of years ago, I noticed my eyes darting away from a point I was shifting on after a few seconds, to race to the other side of the chart or even around the room. (What I say about this may not apply to you, so I’m not assuming you’re the same, just relating my own experience.) I was a lot more anxious then than I am now, and my vision was worse. My conclusion was that it was too much of a change in my vision habits to maintain this easy shifting for very long, and that I’d have to take this new process slowly and get used to it, that my nervous system just wasn’t that calm yet. Maybe I was afraid I’d miss something by keeping my gaze in one place — I don’t know.
Now I find I’m much less reactive, and can’t remember jerking my gaze away from shifting over a small area for many months now, maybe almost a year. From my experience I’d say just keep at it — the new healthier habit of using your eyes properly will establish itself more as you give it time, feeling more and more normal. Maybe if you notice now that your eyes are starting to dart around after they’ve been moving calmly for longer and longer periods, you’ll see there’s progress. (Maybe it used to happen immediately, and now it’s only after a minute or so, for example.) Don’t discount anything you’re doing right! Remember your successes…
Nancy