You Can’t Do Everything – And If You Try, You Won’t Do Anything Well

If you do move from one shiny object to another, you’ll slowly discover a fundamental truth.
Chaos. Disunity. Lack of direction.

We live in an age of distraction. Never-ending notifications, instantaneous communication, and easy access to endless information. Fear of missing out moves us motivates us to try to do everything that our minds and hearts desire. Keep your phone on the table so that you can instantly check the super-important messages that come in every 7 minutes. Walk to work so fast you overtake peaceful joggers. Tell your mama you’ll definitely visit next week. Oh, and, God forbid you don’t have 18 certificates on your Linkedin page and five urgent projects to attend to. The list goes on and on.

Having a lot of irons in the fire may sound like a smart plan, but given the distractions of technology and communications, it is easier than ever to fall victim to the temptations of trying to do too many things – and accomplishing none of them.

In comes Steve Jobs 30% Rule:

“We examined the future product roadmap. Not the products we’re shipping today, the future product line. And what we found was that 30% of them were incredibly good, and about 70% of them were either ‘pretty good’ or things that we didn’t really need to be doing. Businesses we didn’t really need to be in.”

Focus on the 30% of ‘incredibly good’ stuff in your life.

Just ask yourself:

• If you had to end 70% of your relationships, which would they be?
  
• If you had to quit 70% of your projects, which ones would you choose?
  
• If you had to cut your time off by 70%, what would you leave?

Just by honestly answering these questions you can identify more clearly which parts of your life deliver the most value.

Minimalism begins with elimination — once you get rid of the stuff that slows you down, you can start replacing it with stuff that helps you grow. The hard part is being able to let go of things that are ‘pretty good’ in your life — perhaps even things you’ve grown to love.

What You Focus On Expands, Limit Distractions

Our short-term, or working memory can’t handle too many bits of information, and it can only hold information for about 10 seconds. If you overload this short term memory by responding to a text now, rather than waiting until you are done reading this article, you will interrupt the flow of information from your working memory to the long-term memory area of your brain, where copious amounts of data are stored, processed, and made ready for retrieval by your conscious mind.

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The suns rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

^{— Alexander Graham Bell}

Unless you are paying concentrated attention as you read this, you won’t transfer the information completely from your short-term to your long-term memory. You won’t be able to use what you learned without thinking about it and it will be challenging for you to quickly access this content in your memory to make a point, inspire a new habit, or learn something new.

You see, you can talk with a friend or listen to a book while you are driving because the mechanics of driving are deeply embedded in this long-term memory section of your brain. You don’t have to think about driving, yet you can quickly bring it back into focus if someone slams on their brakes in front of you.

And remember, what you focus on expands. Whether you realize it or not, you are choosing your life with your focus. Who are you? Where are you headed? How will you get there? Be aware. Be sure. Be you. Be focused.

“No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed.
No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined.
No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled.
No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.”

^{— Henry Emerson Fosdick}

High Performance Character

Self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-control
are the basic building blocks
of character and high performance.

_{Brian Tracy}

Discipline yourself to persevere without diversion or distraction until your tasks are 100% complete. See it as a “test” to determine whether you are the kind of person who can make a decision to complete something and then carry it out. Once you begin, refuse to stop until the job is finished.