Positive habits are all that stand between you and this feeling of "isn't there more?". Of course there is more to life, but we need to stop seeing our jobs as be all and end all. Being positive about everything, job included, allows you to put your work life in perspective.

At all costs we must remember that work is only a means to an end. We cannot allow it to take over our lives. Your job is what you have to do so you are motivated enough to go out and discover what life really has to offer. Work should only be a means to fund what we do when we're not there.

Now, we don't need to swing too far other way. My beloved husband, official cookie maker in family, will put a batch of cookies in and actually sit and watch them as they brown. Of course, he also watches paint dry and glue set. (Really!) And while what he does he does well, that extreme would drive me crazy. So I compromise. I do two things at once, or even three, but no longer four or five. I put cookies in to bake, then settle in on a chair in front of oven with a magazine (or a telephone) and keep those cookies company. Then I’ll sample one as soon as it's out of oven and cool enough to handle. That's a reward I've been missing out on.

I've been too frantic, too busy, doing too many things at once to enjoy fruits - or cookies - of my labors. I don't get satisfaction of a completed job, much less a job well done when I'm doing so many things at once that none of them are well done. So a vague sense of dissatisfaction builds up, along with frantic stress that's also a by-product. Between stress and dissatisfaction, I get feeling I need to do more – when actually, that's cause of problem. The answer may seem counterintuitive: I need to do less.

After a certain point, multitasking is no longer efficient. Sometimes (take cell phones and driving, for example), it can be downright dangerous. I'd like to challenge you to notice how much you really accomplish when you multitask. Are you saving enough time to be worth stress and worry? Or if you did one or two things at once, instead of four or five or six, would you end up with more energy and less stress, more satisfaction and less time expended?

It's up to you – only you can escape from rush-rush, multitask, be-more-productive trap that American society is caught up in. Only you can choose to do more by doing less all at once. The reward? Finding your car keys exactly where they are supposed to be and eating a perfectly baked chocolate chip cookie.