A way to move faster towards your goals is to focus on one thing at a time. If you focus on too many things at once, it takes attention away from your core goals. It becomes easy to drown in opportunity. There is an opportunity cost to everything, and it’s especially true when it comes to your attention.
In my younger days, I used to try and go 100 miles per hour. In high school, I played tennis and chess while doing 3+ additional extracurricular activities. That took time away from what I should have been focusing on. Which was to make more money.
These days, on top of work, I take on side hustles like investing and working on this blog. If I’m being completely honest, I wish I was just investing and working on this blog. I experience significantly more joy by blogging and investing than working at my day job helping someone else’s dreams come true.
On some weeks, there’s definitely times when I’ve put in half effort to both working and blogging. It resulted in mediocre results to both. Why? Because of work from home as a result of the pandemic. I’ve been unable to disconnect from work during the weekends. Therefore, it spills over to the time that I spend blogging.
Once work from home finishes and I completely disconnect from work on the weekends, I should be able to focus on one thing at a time. That’s when I know my productivity will be maxed out for both. I currently have no choice but to accept the situation as it currently stands.
Soon that will change!
Why Focus on One Thing at a Time?
Humans are fundamentally bad at multitasking. No matter how much we try to fight it, our brain suffers high switching costs. To change focus from one subject to another takes meaningful brainpower. To save the cost of switching, it’s better to focus on one thing at a time.
One thing that you can focus on is to SMASH that social share button for the Google algorithm, BERT! It would be really cool if your friends can increase their productivity as well.
In seriousness, think of a professional juggler. It is phenomenally easier to juggle one ball at a time. You can do it without any practice at all whatsoever. However, it takes practice to juggle 3+ balls at a time. Therefore, a first time one ball juggler will ALWAYS be a way better juggler than a first time three ball juggler.
To be a master juggler of multiple balls, it takes immense amount of time. If you want to be good at multitasking, you have to practice multitasking for a very long time. There is an app out there, called Lumosity, that helps train your brain in processing speed.
However, very few people actually go through with the training over the long term to be better at multitasking. I tried the app and it was too cumbersome for me to consistently train my brain over the long term. Besides, I was busy enough already.
That is why you should focus on one thing at a time. Very few people actually train their brain to be good at multitasking. Even the very few who do don’t end up sticking with it over the long term. To make matters even worse, there’s no guarantee it’ll help you multi-task either.
1) Better Productivity
By focusing on one thing at a time, you’ll get more things done, not less. Additionally, you will get better quicker than someone who multitasks. With the high switching costs out of the equation, there’s less distractions for you to go after the goals you want.
By doing less, you get more things done.
Mathematically speaking, getting 100% of things done in 6 hours is better than 40% of two things done (80% total) in 6 hours. One home run result is much better than two mediocre results.
In tennis, Roger Federer famously said “if you’re good at everything, you’re a well rounded player, but you’ll never be a dangerous player”. Strive to be the player that everyone fears instead of the player that everyone just thinks of as good. Good isn’t always good enough.
2) Less Mental Switching Costs
The mental switching costs are real when it comes to multitasking. Have you ever heard the advice “listen to a podcast while you are driving”? That’s awful advice. By dividing your attention to two activities, you can’t come up with solid results for both. You’ll either fail to remember what podcast you listened to or fail to efficiently get to your location.
There’s high mental switching costs related to changing your attention from the road to a podcast. You might actually end up increasing your risk of an accident while retaining zero things from the podcast. Sure, when you are on a straight highway without the need to change lanes, then that might be an exception.
However, when you are driving down a busy intersection or a busy road, multitasking lowers your driving abilities. Yes, even you. Therefore, it’s better to focus on one thing at a time. There’s a reason why texting and driving is illegal.
3) Drowning in Opportunity
The biggest constraint you will face in your life doesn’t have to do with money. It has to do with time. Whether you are Bill Gates or the average Joe Blow down the street, you are all faced with the same 24 hours.
Therefore, you need to focus on one thing at a time. Taking on too many tasks can make you drown in opportunity. You do not have unlimited hours in the day. No one does.
Why do you think Apple doesn’t sell candy bars, a proven, lucrative industry? They are OK with being the worst candy bar seller in the world as long as they are the best technology seller in the world. If Apple decided to sell candy bars all of a sudden, it would take away its focus from their core competency.
With the billions of cash they hold in their balance sheet, they can literally get into any industry that they can possibly think of. However, they don’t, because they recognize the need to focus on being the best in one thing. Otherwise, it takes time away from their core competency.
Money is not the constraint for them, it’s their time and attention.
Downsides When You Focus on One Thing at a Time
It’s not all good when you focus on one thing only. There are some downsides. Although the positives outweigh the negatives, it’s still good to consider the negatives and be informed. After all, the glass is not half full, it’s half empty as well.
The below negatives are things that I’ve had to overcome as well. These days, I do my absolute best to focus on one thing at a time. When I am catching up and talking to my parents, I rarely text my friends at the same time.
I am present and in the moment.
However, I am not delusional to think that there aren’t any downsides to focus on just one thing at a time. It took me a while to actually notice these downsides and I’ve taken the time to outline them for you. After noticing and recognizing these downsides, you’ll be in a better spot to make better decisions that are good for you to practice over the long haul.
1) Time To Adjust
When you first shift your mindset from multitasking to focus on one thing at a time, it won’t feel natural. You will not feel as productive as before. It might actually fill you with uneasiness that you’re not doing enough and that you should be doing more.
It’s perfectly natural to feel this way. To solve this issue, you would have to consciously put in effort to calm your nerves. Literally tell yourself that you are doing just fine. Then give it about 3 – 6 months of giving up multitasking before you decide that it isn’t for you.
We have a dying need for consistency and changing from one way of doing things to another will feel uncomfortable in the beginning. Once it becomes the new normal, it will go much better. You will have a better time not multitasking than multitasking.
2) Closed Off to Other Ways
When you focus on one thing at a time, you can begin to lose exposure to other ways that could potentially have been better. In some instances, it might have already been too late.
For example, you might continue to use Internet Explorer because you don’t want to focus on learning how alternative browsers work. Therefore, you may miss out on a chance to increase your productivity by learning about Chrome.
In this world, there’s rarely only just one. There’s always multiple choices and options for you to choose from. Whether it’s a product that solves a problem you’ve been looking to find a solution for or whether it’s something simple like food choices, there’s always more than one.
Too much focus into one thing can make you closed off to the rest of the infinite number of choices you have available. You can still choose to accept that and continue or research for alternative solutions.
3) Too Much Investment in One Activity
You may focus too much time and energy into one activity that may have turned out to be wrong. As it relates to personal finance, you may focus on saving only when you should be focusing on saving and investing.
Saving and investing can sound like multitasking but it’s still focusing on one goal. Which is to better your personal finances.
The dopamine of being great at one portion of the spectrum can work against you. Focusing on one thing at a time is good and produces dopamine by allowing you to be better at that one thing. However, you could have been focusing too much on a bad idea.
This is actually the biggest downfall when you focus on one thing at a time. It may not have been the best choice to have focused on. Therefore, you may want to research alternative solutions before sticking with one thing for the long term.
You may focus too much of your time and attention into work, even if that career is not the best one for you long term. Before committing to an activity, it’s important to evaluate whether it’s the best activity to devote your time and attention to.
Focus on One Thing at a Time to Win
Through all of its faults, it’s still much better to focus on one thing at a time. When you cast too wide of a net, you have no idea what you will catch at the end of the day. You can easily drown in opportunity. Life is full of many great opportunitites.
However, having too much opportunities can be your greatest downfall. When you focus on losing weight, you shouldn’t focus on gaining muscle. Few people are able to lose weight and gain muscle at the same time. Most people quit working out after showing mediocre results after six months.
Why do you think people don’t have two full time careers? There are some who do have that but they are the rarest of the rarest of people. Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey come to mind. They continue to make superhuman results with multiple companies.
However, they are still not able to do it alone. They need to hire employees for their companies to be successful. Very rarely will they actually work the customer service line and branch out to other aspects of their companies. At the end of the day, they’re still narrowing their focus to play to their strengths.
I’ve made every mistake in the book when it comes to productivity so that you don’t have to. What I’ve found is that multitasking only makes me feel productive. It doesn’t actually make me productive. When I focus on one thing at a time, it’s when I actually start achieving the goals that I want to achieve.
It will be prudent for you to do the same or at the very least, try it out. I highly recommend it.
Hey there
Very interesting read. The power of focus on one thing is a key ingredient for extraordinary results, fully agree. It’s important to consistently prioritize and put all resources towards achieving what is seen as the most important thing.
There are of course always disadvantages, too much focus has its flipside, so it’s equally important to find a balance.
Thanks for sharing and all the best.
Cheers
Absolutely. Focusing on one thing at a time definitely isn’t perfect but it’s better than multitasking for your productivity. The mental costs of switching between one task for another is enormous and one that people discount a lot.
Thanks for stopping by!
Super true. I have lots of projects, but when i focus in just one, the thing started to explode. Amazing tips and story!
Absolutely. Less is definitely more when it comes to productivity. Going too much too soon can easily backfire over time.
I like the juggler analogy. I think that’s a great way to explain that if we are spreading ourselves out too much, then it’s impossible to do anything well. I’m currently reading “Deep Work” by Cal Newport. It’s a fascinating book that covers a lot of this. Basically, it’s impossible for most of us to really dive deep into something because our brains are constantly being tugged in a million different directions.
Good stuff as usual!
Thank you Dave! I heard about doing deep work but didn’t realize there was a book about it. Yes, and those million different directions cause us to lose our productivity in the most ways imaginable.
It took a long time for me to realize it but that actually ruins productivity. It’s even worse these days with the invention of the cell phone.