Quit Multitasking

Chances are that you’re doing something else while you’re reading this article. You might be in a meeting, working on a proposal, talking to someone on the phone, working out in the gym, having dinner, you name it.

Am I right? Even if you’re 100% concentrated on reading this article, you probably engage in some multitasking throughout your day. Most of us do. We think it’s a good thing to be busy.

But at the same time, we all have read that multitasking is not effective. In recent years, there’s been a lot of attention for the negative impact of multitasking on your brain.

In simple words: You get dumber by multitasking. 

Why is it so hard to stop doing things that hurt us? All the negative effects of multitasking are not visible to us, I think.

If someone tells you: “We lose a lot of business due to multitasking.”

We think: “Sure.”

Or: “Multitasking kills your brain.”

We think: “I’m still here talking to you, right? My brain works pretty well.”

We read about it and continue to multitask our way through life. Our behavior doesn’t change.

All those things are hypotheticals—things that might happen. But what if I tell you that life is better NOW when you stop doing a million things at the same time?

First, I have a few questions for you:

1. Do you ever feel restless?
2. Do you feel the urge to grab your phone every 5 minutes?
3. Do you find it difficult to focus on one thing?
4. Do your relationships suffer from your “distracted” behavior?
5. Does your work suffer from that same behavior?

If you answered yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I have some news for you: You’re an addict.

I’m not kidding. I’m serious about this. It’s not normal if you’re always distracted or that you have an urge to give into intrusions.

In what universe is it normal to check your email every 5 minutes? Or answer immediately to texts, no matter what you’re doing? Or read the news every 10 minutes? Why do you need all those things?

I suspect you don’t have a real answer. At least, I didn’t. All those examples that I’m giving came from my own life.

I always felt on edge, like I was missing out on something. I was always thinking:

• “Are there any new emails I have to respond to?”
• “Who should I text now?”
• “What’s person X doing?”
• “Are there any new articles?”
• “Is there any new news?”
• “What happened in the NBA yesterday?”

And those thoughts popped up anytime during the day. During meetings, breakfast, lunch, dinner, work, relaxation, running . I was obsessed with doing multiple things at the same time.

The quality of life takes a serious hit if you’re a slave to distractions. But I believe that you shouldn’t be a slave to anything and that you should have full control over your mind. And not the other way around.

With a multitasking addiction, your mind controls your behavior. But that’s not what our mind is for.

According to Pragmatism, a philosophy founded by Charles S. Peirce, the mind is merely a tool to solve problems. There is no other practical use of your mind.

So why do you let your mind take control over your actions? Not good.

Why I Stopped

If you’re used to multitasking, it’s tough to stop. You need a compelling reason.

The reason I stopped is simple: Time.

Steve Jobs put it best:

“My favorite things in life don’t cost any money. It’s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.”

You might think that multitasking saves time. But it’s the opposite. Every time you switch between tasks, it takes 20 minutes to re-focus on the original task. That adds up quickly.

And because I don’t want to waste my time on planet earth, I stopped multitasking altogether.

Get Fully Engaged

One of my favourite books about habits is Daily Rituals by Mason Currey. If you don’t know that book, it’s a collection of working routines of many of the greatest minds in history.

You can read about the habits of Nikola Tesla, Benjamin Franklin, Jane Austen, Voltaire, Ayn Rand, and more than 160 others.

For instance, Freud worked sixteen hours a day, but Gertrude Stein could never write for more than thirty minutes.

A common theme for most people who are mentioned in the book is that they managed to find time for uninterrupted work. Otherwise, how do you get things done? It’s impossible.

Most of them also went for long walks, closed the door to their office for hours at a time, or had very strict daily routines. They did these things to be alone with their thoughts, find calm, or just to focus on solving problems.

When we’re truly engaged, we don’t multitask — we’re too busy with the the task at hand. And that’s one of the core problems with multitasking. We just do a bunch of stupid things at the same time.

But have you ever multitasked satisfying activities? Stuff that you’re passionate about?

I don’t feel the urge to grab my phone when I’m having an interesting conversation, or when I’m enjoying the nature, or when I’m having a great meal.

So if you don’t know what else you should do other than checking your email, the news or social media, here are some ideas:

• Go for a one hour walk without devices.
• Spend a weekend in a cabin without internet.
• Put all the TVs in the basement or attic and only read during your down time.
• Go fishing.
• Play your favorite sport.
• Take a nap.
• Write in your journal.
• Listen to an album from start to finish.
• Start a video diary.
• Write a poem for someone you love.
• Do great work.

Just be creative. Because these activities, in contrast to mindless activities, really stimulate your mind. Your mind gets stronger if you do those things. See it as exercise for your brain.

And with a strong brain, you can achieve practically anything that you can image in life. Muhammad Ali put it best:

“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it — then I can achieve it.”

Now, you just have to believe it. One task at a time.

Perfectionism :- Don't let it destroy your productivity...

Do you always worry that you didn’t do a good job? Do you always question your work and your actions? Are you afraid of admitting your mistakes? Does rejection make you feel like shit?

If so, you’re in great danger.

I’m not a perfectionist myself. At least, that’s what I try to tell myself. I bet that you try to tell yourself that as well. In fact, the people who don’t admit it are the worst.

But here’s the thing: If you’re a perfectionist, you’re just a procrastinator with a mask. It’s no different from someone who’s lazy and does nothing at all.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look. A perfectionist…

• Always waits for the right moment.
• Never makes mistakes.
• Always needs more time.

But at the end of the day, life and work is about outcomes. Results matter.

And if you’re a perfectionist you might get the outcomes some day. But the question is: When? And, at what cost?

Research specifically shows that perfectionism is closely related to depression and low self-esteem.

“Perfectionists are their own devils.” —Jack Kirby

Is the price of perfectionism really worth it?

I’ve found that perfectionism is just another form of procrastination. When you constantly worry about making mistakes, doubt creeps in your mind. And that causes indecision.

There are two types of perfectionists:

1. The one that never starts. You want to achieve something, but you immediately start doubting yourself. You think: “I don’t think I can do it.” So you never start.
2. The one that starts but has too high standards. You set a goal. You work hard (maybe too hard). But you’ve set your goals so high, that you’re always failing yourself.

Both scenarios can cause the following: Anxiety, worry, depression, and Type A behavior.

These are things that we rather avoid. Joachim Stöber and Jutta Joormann, who studied Worry, Procrastination, and Perfectionism, write:

“The combination of concern over mistakes and procrastination may be a crucial factor in the maintenance of worry. On the one hand, it may prolong existing threats because no steps are taken to cope. On the other hand, it may increase existing threats or even produce additional threats because initially solvable problems will pile up, thus creating an overload of problems that may finally be insoluble.”

And that feeling of being helpless is the biggest pitfall for us. Because what do we do when we feel helpless? Exactly—we give up. Just look at the studies about Learned Helplessness.

However, perfectionism is not always bad. In fact, some studies suggest perfectionism is related to greater achievement. But that’s not the question here.

Of course, when you set higher goals and if you have higher standards; you achieve more. Without a doubt, perfectionistic tendencies can be a good thing.

But as we all know, achieving goals is not the only thing in life. It’s more about HOW we reach our goals and aspirations.

“How can we beat the nasty side of procrastination and perfectionism?”

So we’ve talked about how procrastination and perfectionism are related, and why it can be bad. But what’s the solution?

I’ve found an interesting study by Gordon L. Flett and his colleagues; they talk about the role of learned resourcefulness to perfectionism. They suggest that learned resourcefulness can play a mediator role.

So I started looking into learned resourcefulness. And this is what I’ve found from an article by Michael Rosenbaum:

“Learned resourcefulness refers to the behavioral repertoire necessary for both regressive self-control and reformative self-control. This repertoire includes self-regulating one’s emotional and cognitive responses during stressful situations, using problem-solving skills, and delaying immediate gratification for the sake of more meaningful rewards in the future.”

Learned resourcefulness is the skill that you need to stop sabotaging yourself.

Finding a balance.

Let’s look at the opposite of a perfectionist: A slacker.

If you’re a slacker, you don’t care about much. Good enough is your motto. And you have no ambition at all.

An attitude like that doesn’t bring you anywhere. The American novelist Cormac McCarthy put it best:

“It’s like a lot of things, said the smith. Do the least part of it wrong and ye’d just as well to do it all wrong.”

Slacking is an attitude of “I don’t care.” But if you want to make things happen in your life, you have to care.

And what you want is to find a middle ground where your perfectionistic tendencies drive you, but you have the calm of a slacker, and you combine that with learned resourcefulness.

So that’s why I found a balance between perfectionism and slacking. It looks like this:

Do great work like a perfectionist, but don’t give too much attention to your goals like a slacker.

And finally, combine it with this:

• Resourcefulness — Goals can work well, but they can also be counterproductive. That’s why you want to rely on systems. And when shit hits the fan; use your problem-solving skills to figure things out.

To me, that’s the sweet spot: Instead of beating yourself up when you make a mistake or if you fail yourself, you just adjust or solve the problem.

• Avoid the perfectionist’s favorite sentence: “OMG, this is the worst thing ever!”
• Also avoid the slacker’s favorite sentence: “I don’t care.”
• But instead, you say: “I’ve got this.”

So what’s your current challenge? Actually, I don’t even have to ask: You’ve got this.

Momentum :-The ups and downs in our life....

Most things in life that are worth it are difficult to achieve. For example, it’s tough to build a successful business, form new habits, quit smoking, etc.

Here are some scary statistics to back that up:

• 90% of all startups fail.
• 96% of all small businesses fail within 10 years.
• 94% of smokers who want to quit fail.
• 92% of people quit their new year’s resolutions.

Yes, you will fail. There’s nothing wrong with that. But that’s not what I want to talk about.

I want to talk about WHY most of us fail. We quit before we achieve momentum.

You see, whenever you start something new, it’s difficult to follow through. We often quit too early when we experience setbacks.

A lot has been said about conquering obstacles, not giving up, and expecting the worst — but when push comes to shove, we quit anyway.

Motivational quotes won’t help you during tough times. And instead of relying on blind faith or fluffy promises, start to take a look at the statistics more in-depth.

One of my friends wants to start a business. Recently we were talking about the failure rates. I was like: “Did you know 96% of all business fail within 10 years?”

I could see his face turning white with fear. He said:

“That’s pretty scary stuff. That makes you really rethink your approach.”

And he’s right. Starting a business, getting your dream job, losing weight, finding a spouse, or anything else that’s worth it is NOT easy. But at the same time, numbers can also be so scary that we never start.

Intention Beats Everything

Let’s take a closer look at failure rates. According to the Small Business Administration, 33% of businesses fail during their first two years.

What does that tell us?

Survive your first two years and you’re already performing better than a third of all businesses, or people. That’s like many things in life. Most people just quit before they reach some sort of success.

For instance, research shows that on average, it takes 66 days to for a new habit. But most people never give themselves enough time to form new habits.

And when they are unsuccessful, they think, “I suck.” Well, no, you don’t suck. You just need to keep going.

And it’s safe to say that there’s only one thing that’s important when you start something:

INTENTION.

And that’s also backed by science. According to the cognitive theory of planned behaviour, coined by Icek Ajzen, actions can be predicted by intentions.

The research is pretty convincing. In a study, done by Barbara Orser and colleagues, they found a relationship between growth willingness of the business owner (an indication of intention) and firm growth over a four-year period.

See, it’s not ALL bad.

The great news about this research is that YOU control intention. YOU control your actions and your effort. So in a way, the faith of your business, life, career, health, is in your hands—not circumstances or statistics.

To be successful, all you need is intention, plus another vital thing: Momentum.

The Magic Of Momentum

The way up is always more difficult than the way down. You know this. It’s physically more straining to walk uphill than downhill.

Why don’t you apply that analogy to your life and business?

I look at starting anything big in life like this:

It’s like pushing a ball of stone up a mountain. Of course, the way up is more difficult. But when you’ve pushed the mofo all the way to the top, all you have to do is give it a slight push, and it goes down by itself.

That’s momentum.

In a study by Rolland LeBrasseur and colleagues, that examined the relationship between growth momentum; I found something interesting.

It showed that startups that had a high level of activity in their first year, experienced a larger growth in their second year.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about.

The more you do, the more committed you are, and the more intent you show NOW, the more it will pay off LATER.

This law only holds true if you put in the energy to push the ball of stone up the mountain. You don’t have to go fast — just make sure you go steady. Because most people quit before they reach the top of the mountain.

What To Do When You Reached The Top Of The Mountain

Don’t smile yet. There’s another mountain waiting for you:

And after that, there’s another mountain. Up and down. Up and down.

Now it’s your turn: Up and down.

Work , Life > Balance .

Do you get drained trying to find a balance between activities in your life and career?

There’s work, promotions, goals, making money on one side of the equation. And on the other side, there’s health, family, friends, holidays, you name it.

Here comes the main challenge: How do you balance everything?

When we talk about work–life balance, we talk about the prioritizing between work related things and lifestyle related things.

What do you do?

• Chasing career vs settling down
• Taking risk vs being conservative
• Chasing money vs intrinsic rewards
• Working vs resting
• Giving vs taking
• Thinking of yourself vs others
• Spending time with family vs friends

Deciding seems impossible. Result? Stress, worry, anxiety.

Research even shows that people who believe they don’t have time for their personal life, feel drained and distracted at work.

Recently I was talking to one my friends. He and his wife recently had their second baby. And he was saying how he struggled with balance when they had their first child. But now, he decided to simplify things.

90% of his time goes to family, work, and himself. All the other things in life he ignores. No balance. All or nothing in a few areas.

And I’m exactly the same. I don’t think balance is a good strategy.

A pragmatic view.

Let’s look at this work-life balance situation.

Let’s say you have 9–5 job. But you want to be in the office by 8.30am. So you leave the house at 7.30am. You want to leave early and you finish up work at 5.30pm. It’s 6.30pm before you get home.

That whole work aspect of your day takes 10 hours in that scenario, which is not uncommon. Let’s say you sleep 7 hours. That gives you 17 waking hours.

That means you spend 59% of your time on work related things.

There goes your balance.

Plus, we spend most of our free time thinking, worrying, and talking about work.

It’s safe the say there’s no such thing as a work-life balance.

You see? Work is life.

• If work is holding back your personal or spiritual growth, find different work.
• If work is fucking up your relationships, again, find different work.

Don’t make things harder for yourself. 

You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have it all.

To me, there are only a few important things. My health, having good relationships, and that’s about it. It’s pretty easy to balance that.

We spend too much time balancing things we don’t need in our lives. That turns our life into a circus act.

Balance only makes life complicated. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mind complicated things. I like math and econometrics.

But I don’t like it when people complicate very simple things. Work-life balance is only an issue if you turn it into one. And why do you even need to balance a thousand things?

Henry David Thoreau said it best:

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.”

If you oversimplify your life, and decide what your life is exactly about—you will find there are only a few priorities that matter.

You don’t need to do everything. It’s fine if you only have time for a few things in life.

Don’t worry. Don’t balance. Simplify.

Improve Yourself ...!

Can I ask you something? How well do you know yourself?

Sometimes, it doesn’t even matter how good your self-awareness is. You might know yourself, but you’re not BEING yourself. Sounds familiar?

Here are a few more questions for you:

• Are you the same person at work and at home?
• Are you the same person when you’re with your friends and with your spouse?
• Do you feel like you’re forced to behave differently in some situations?

Often, the answer is no to the first two questions, and yes to the last one. The reason is that we somehow feel we have to be different people in different situations. But that’s a lie.

Ralph Waldo Emerson put it best:

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

Emerson’s quote is still as current as can be. We really live in a world that tries to turn you into something you’re not. There are so many standards about the way you should look, talk, and behave.

Don’t try to change yourself.

We often find ourselves in situations where we feel we don’t belong. Maybe you feel like an outsider at work, at school, at your in-laws, or even at home.

Now, I don’t believe in the whole, “you don’t get me,” thing. Too often people just try to rebel and say that other people don’t get them. That’s either pretentious or childish.

However, I do believe in one simple thing: Never apologize for who you are.

It has nothing to do with being rebellious or an outcast. It just has to do with being you. And sometimes, you just can’t be yourself. In those cases, it’s time to get out. There’s no other solution.

“Why not change yourself?”

I used to believe that. But it’s not something that works. Again, it’s a story that society has made up. It’s particularly made up by business people. They say, “you just have to adjust to the company culture.”

Really? Do I have to adjust to complaining, backstabbing, and office politics? If that’s not your thing, don’t adjust.

Peter Drucker said it best in Managing Oneself:

“The conclusion bears repeating: Do not try to change yourself — you are unlikely to succeed. But work hard to improve the way you perform.”

Don’t change. Improve your strengths.

Who do you NOT want to be?

The whole ‘do not try to change yourself’ idea took me many years to apply in my life.

In the past, I would get jobs at companies with shitty cultures. I would also go for “drinks” with dudes who only talked about cars, flats, football, and girls.

But these days I just don’t put myself in those situations anymore. I don’t work for or with stuck up people. I don’t hang out with judgmental people, or people who are shallow.

About that, Robert Greene, the author of Mastery, says:

“The more clearly you recognize who you do not want to be, then, the clearer your sense of identity and purpose will be.”

And that’s why I’m myself all the time — I know who I don’t want to be.

You can’t be liked by everyone in the world. If people don’t like you: So be it. It’s a price I’m happy to pay as long as I can be myself.

In fact, I’ll pay any price to stay true to myself. Because that’s one of the few things in life that’s really worth it.

Train Your Brain to think in a different way .

What is a Mental Model?

A mental model is an explanation of how something works. It is a concept, framework, or worldview that you carry around in your mind to help you interpret the world and understand the relationship between things. Mental models are deeply held beliefs about how the world works.

For example, supply and demand is a mental model that helps you understand how the economy works. Game theory is a mental model that helps you understand how relationships and trust work. Entropy is a mental model that helps you understand how disorder and decay work.

Mental models guide your perception and behavior. They are the thinking tools that you use to understand life, make decisions, and solve problems. Learning a new mental model gives you a new way to see the world—like Richard Feynman learning a new math technique.

Mental models are imperfect, but useful. There is no single mental model from physics or engineering, for example, that provides a flawless explanation of the entire universe, but the best mental models from those disciplines have allowed us to build bridges and roads, develop new technologies, and even travel to outer space. As historian Yuval Noah Harari puts it, “Scientists generally agree that no theory is 100 percent correct. Thus, the real test of knowledge is not truth, but utility.”

The best mental models are the ideas with the most utility. They are broadly useful in daily life. Understanding these concepts will help you make wiser choices and take better actions. This is why developing a broad base of mental models is critical for anyone interested in thinking clearly, rationally, and effectively.

The Secret to Great Thinking

Expanding your set of mental models is something experts need to work on just as much as novices. We all have our favorite mental models, the ones we naturally default to as an explanation for how or why something happened. As you grow older and develop expertise in a certain area, you tend to favor the mental models that are most familiar to you.

Here's the problem: when a certain worldview dominates your thinking, you’ll try to explain every problem you face through that worldview. This pitfall is particularly easy to slip into when you're smart or talented in a given area.

The more you master a single mental model, the more likely it becomes that this mental model will be your downfall because you’ll start applying it indiscriminately to every problem. What looks like expertise is often a limitation. As the common proverb says, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” 

When a certain worldview dominates your thinking, you’ll try to explain every problem you face through that worldview.

Consider this example from biologist Robert Sapolsky. He asks, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” Then, he provides answers from different experts.

• If you ask an evolutionary biologist, they might say, “The chicken crossed the road because they saw a potential mate on the other side.”
• If you ask a kinesiologist, they might say, “The chicken crossed the road because the muscles in the leg contracted and pulled the leg bone forward during each step.”
• If you ask a neuroscientist, they might say, “The chicken crossed the road because the neurons in the chicken’s brain fired and triggered the movement.”

Technically speaking, none of these experts are wrong. But nobody is seeing the entire picture either. Each individual mental model is just one view of reality. The challenges and situations we face in life cannot be entirely explained by one field or industry.

All perspectives hold some truth. None of them contain the complete truth.

Relying on a narrow set of thinking tools is like wearing a mental straitjacket. Your cognitive range of motion is limited. When your set of mental models is limited, so is your potential for finding a solution. In order to unleash your full potential, you have to collect a range of mental models. You have to build out your toolbox. Thus, the secret to great thinking is to learn and employ a variety of mental models.

Expanding Your Set of Mental Models

The process of accumulating mental models is somewhat like improving your vision. Each eye can see something on its own. But if you cover one of them, you lose part of the scene. It’s impossible to see the full picture when you’re only looking through one eye.

Similarly, mental models provide an internal picture of how the world works. We should continuously upgrade and improve the quality of this picture. This means reading widely from good books, studying the fundamentals of seemingly unrelated fields, and learning from people with wildly different life experiences. 

The mind's eye needs a variety of mental models to piece together a complete picture of how the world works. The more sources you have to draw upon, the clearer your thinking becomes. As the philosopher Alain de Botton notes, “The chief enemy of good decisions is a lack of sufficient perspectives on a problem.”

The Pursuit of Liquid Knowledge

In school, we tend to separate knowledge into different silos—biology, economics, history, physics, philosophy. In the real world, information is rarely divided into neatly defined categories. In the words of Charlie Munger, “All the wisdom of the world is not to be found in one little academic department.” 

World-class thinkers are often silo-free thinkers. They avoid looking at life through the lens of one subject. Instead, they develop “liquid knowledge” that flows easily from one topic to the next.

This is why it is important to not only learn new mental models, but to consider how they connect with one another. Creativity and innovation often arise at the intersection of ideas. By spotting the links between various mental models, you can identify solutions that most people overlook.

Tools for Thinking Better

Here's the good news:

You don't need to master every detail of every subject to become a world-class thinker. Of all the mental models humankind has generated throughout history, there are just a few dozen that you need to learn to have a firm grasp of how the world works.

Many of the most important mental models are the big ideas from disciplines like biology, chemistry, physics, economics, mathematics, psychology, philosophy. Each field has a few mental models that form the backbone of the topic. For example, some of the pillar mental models from economics include ideas like Incentives, Scarcity, and Economies of Scale.

If you can master the fundamentals of each discipline, then you can develop a remarkably accurate and useful picture of life. To quote Charlie Munger again, “80 or 90 important models will carry about 90 percent of the freight in making you a worldly-wise person. And, of those, only a mere handful really carry very heavy freight.”

We have only one life so decide how to live it :- Urgent or Important

There are moments throughout our lives, and they happen almost every day, where we catch a glimpse of what we are capable of, a flicker of what we are destined to be, or a hint of what we desire to become.

It could be a burst of inspiration for that book we always wanted to write. Or the yearning to finally lose the extra weight. Or the feeling of dissatisfaction with our job and an urge to build something of our own.

These are important desires and they call to us all the time. But right before we answer their call, the urgency of life tends to get in the way. Your phone rings. Your car is low on gas. Your boss drops a tight deadline on you. And so we delay our dreams one more day for the sake of putting out another fire.

How do we get past this? How do we start living the life that's important to us instead of just responding to the everyday emergencies?

Before we talk about how to get started, I wanted to let you know I researched and compiled science-backed ways to stick to good habits and stop procrastinating. Want to check out my insights? 

The Next 10 Years of Your Life

Think about this: you’re going to spend the next 10 years doing something.

Too often that something is responding to what is urgent instead of pursuing what is important.

Too often the need to make money (urgent) wins out over the desire to build something we’re proud of (important). Too often the urge to find a way to lose twenty pounds in six weeks (urgent) wins out over becoming the type of person who doesn't miss workouts (important). Too often the craving to be noticed or appreciated (urgent) wins out over the ability to be present and satisfied (important).

Sure, we all need money. And yes, there are times when the world requires us to put important things on hold so that we can get the rest of our crazy lives under control. Handling responsibilities is part of life. But how long will you delay what’s important to you just so that you can handle the next urgent thing in front of you? How long will you put off what you’re capable of doing just to maintain what you’re currentlydoing?

Will you wait a year? Five years? Your whole life?

Too often we live our lives based on what is urgent for us and not what is important to us. It’s dangerously easy to spend years constantly chasing the next urgent thing and never setting aside time to do what we know we should.

How to Overcome the Urgency of Everyday Life

If you want to start living an important life, then choose a clear direction for yourself. When you have the courage to say, “This is important to me and I'm going after it,” you don't fall into the trap of living the life that other people expect you to live.

For example…

If I know that my unwavering goal is to finish this article, then that goal gives me direction and purpose. Whenever I have a free moment, I write another sentence. Whenever I get a new idea, I automatically think about how it relates to accomplishing my goal of finishing this article. My life is organized around accomplishing this specific, important task.

We all have urgent tasks each day — a phone call we have to take, an email we need to respond to, a sick friend we have to help — but having a clear purpose and a specific goal allows you to get right back to what is important after you respond to the everyday emergencies. A specific goal gives you direction and prevents you from being sucked into a whirlwind of time–consuming, unimportant tasks.

A specific goal is different than a desire, and that's crucial to understand. Wanting to get in shape is a desire, doing 100 pushups in a row is a specific goal. Wanting to start your own business is a desire, securing three paying clients is a specific goal. Wanting to write a book is a desire, finishing the first chapter is a specific goal.

Live an Important Life

Nothing worth working for will ever seem urgent. That’s the nature of important goals. They don’t demand attention right now. They require a sense of purpose, a clear direction, and consistency over the long haul.

I propose that we stop letting the seeds of greatness slip through our fingers. I say that we abandon the frantic rush towards mediocre and start the slow march towards greatness.

Pick one thing that's important to you, set a specific goal for yourself, and get started today.

Never leave your dreams unfulfilled.

Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses

t’s not unusual for people to compare themselves with others around them, and to feel superior or inferior towards them based on their strengths and their weaknesses.

The thing is, every individual is different and we all function differently based on our personalities. It is important to know yourself and your capacities.

Your strengths are things you can leverage on, things you can use to push yourself further.

On the other hand, your weaknesses are not your downfall. These are areas you need to improve on. It is not something you lack. It is something you need to develop and build.

In order to leverage your strengths and improve on your weaknesses, you first need to know them.

In his book What You’re Really Meant to Do: A Roadmap for Reaching Your Unique Potential, author Robert Kaplan observes that most people actually have no clue what their strengths and weaknesses are.

Kaplan believes that people should take ownership of assessing themselves. After all, it is for their own personal development.

Knowing your personal strengths

Your biggest personal strength would be something that comes very easily for you. Take some time and think about what comes naturally for you. It could be anything.

For example, perhaps you have no problems having conversations with people you meet for the first time, or being able to think of quick solutions in a tense environment.

Here is a simple exercise you can try. From the list of attributes in Table 1 (see below), pick five that represent you the most, and arrange them in order, with number five being the one that represents you the least and number one being the one which represents you the most.

Remember, don’t choose attributes that you want to have. Choose those which really represent you. You can choose more than five if you want to.

Now that you have your list, you know what your biggest strengths are. Leverage them.

Knowing your weaknesses

It is equally important to know your weaknesses as much as knowing your strengths.

Your weaknesses hold you back from achieving many great things. Weaknesses are areas that you have the power to improve. It can be anything ranging from professional to social skills.

Similar to the exercise you did earlier, pick five attributes from the list in Table 2 (see above) which you believe represent you, with number five being the least like you and number one being the most like you.

Now you have a list of some of your weaknesses and can begin addressing them.

Exercises like the two you just did are very basic. There are many more elaborate tests you can take to find out about your strengths and weakness in more depth.

Why should I know my own strengths and weakness?

Knowing your own strengths and weaknesses gives you a better understanding of yourself and how you function.

Understanding your strengths keeps you ahead in a lot of things. For instance, if you are looking at career options, you would be able to narrow down specific job scopes based on the things you know you are good at.

It also helps you to grow more. Knowing what you can excel at enables you to aim higher and achieve much more.

Knowing your weaknesses gives you a clearer understanding of things that may be holding you back, and you can then work around finding ways to not let your weaknesses pull you behind.

Should I focus on my strengths or work on my weaknesses?

Many people ask if it’s more worth their time to just focus on strengths or work on improving weaknesses?

Generally, it would be better to focus more on your strengths.

These are things you are already good at doing, so you won’t need to invest too much of your time and effort in it.

Focusing on your strengths is about seeking opportunities instead of problems. Instead of focusing on the negatives, focus your energy on the things you are good at.

Focusing on things you are weak at decreases your self-confidence, enthusiasm and overall performance. Usually, not much is achieved by trying to fix one’s weakness.

Having said that, working on your weaknesses is important as it contributes to personal growth.

When you have something you are not good at, improving it even slightly can make huge change in your overall performance.

Don’t try to fix or get rid of your weaknesses. It won’t work. Instead, work around your weaknesses. Find ways where they don’t hinder you or stand in your way.

For example if you have an event to plan, you know you need posters for it and you are not artistically creative but you are excellent at coordinating, use your strength here. Get a team to design the posters and coordinate with them to ensure you get what you want.

I believe that it is equally important to understand both your strength and weaknesses. It is essential for self-development and personal growth.

There are a lot of wonderful things you can achieve if you knew your true potential and the things you are capable of doing.

Focus :-The Ultimate Guide

Focus and concentration can be difficult to master. Sure, most people want to learn how to improve focus and boost concentration. But actually doing it? We live in a noisy world and constant distractions can make focus difficult.

Luckily, this page contains the best ideas and top research on how to get and stay focused. We will break down the science behind sharpening your mind and paying attention to what matters. Whether you're looking to focus on your goals in life or business, this page should cover everything you need to know.

You can click the links below to jump to a particular section or simply scroll down to read everything. At the end of this page, you’ll find a complete list of all the articles I have written on focus.

I. Focus: What It Is and How it Works

• What is Focus?
• Why Can't I Focus?
• The Myth of Multitasking

II. How to Focus and Increase Your Attention Span

• Warren Buffett's “2 List” Strategy for Focused Attention
• Measure Your Results
• Focus on the Process, Not the Event

III. Mind-Hacks for Getting Focused

• How to Improve Concentration
• Where to Go From Here

I. Focus: What It Is and How it Works

First things first. What is focus, really? Experts define focus as the act of concentrating your interest or activity on something. That's a somewhat boring definition, but there is an important insight hiding inside that definition.

What is Focus?

In order to concentrate on one thing you must, by default, ignore many other things.

Here's a better way to put it:

Focus can only occur when we have said yes to one option and no to all other options. In other words, elimination is a prerequisite for focus. As Tim Ferriss says, “What you don’t do determines what you can do.”

Of course, focus doesn't require a permanent no, but it does require a present no. You always have the option to do something else later, but in the present momentfocus requires that you only do one thing. Focus is the key to productivity because saying no to every other option unlocks your ability to accomplish the one thing that is left.

Now for the important question: What can we do to focus on the things that matter and ignore the things that don't?

Why Can’t I Focus?

Most people don’t have trouble with focusing. They have trouble with deciding.

What I mean is that most healthy humans have a brain that is capable of focusing if we get the distractions out of the way. Have you ever had a task that you absolutely had to get done? What happened? You got it done because the deadline made the decision for you. Maybe you procrastinated beforehand, but once things became urgent and you were forced to make a decision, you took action.

Instead of doing the difficult work of choosing one thing to focus on, we often convince ourselves that multitasking is a better option. This is ineffective.

Here's why…

The Myth of Multitasking

Technically, we are capable of doing two things at the same time. It is possible, for example, to watch TV while cooking dinner or to answer an email while talking on the phone.

What is impossible, however, is concentrating on two tasks at once. You're either listening to the TV and the overflowing pot of pasta is background noise, or you're tending to the pot of pasta and the TV is background noise. During any single instant, you are concentrating on one or the other.

Multitasking forces your brain to switch your focus back and forth very quickly from one task to another. This wouldn't be a big deal if the human brain could transition seamlessly from one job to the next, but it can't.

Have you ever been in the middle of writing an email when someone interrupts you? When the conversation is over and you get back to the message, it takes you a few minutes to get your bearings, remember what you were writing, and get back on track. Something similar happens when you multitask. Multitasking forces you to pay a mental price each time you interrupt one task and jump to another. In psychology terms, this mental price is called the switching cost.

Switching cost is the disruption in performance that we experience when we switch our focus from one area to another. One study, published in the International Journal of Information Management in 2003, found that the typical person checks email once every five minutes and that, on average, it takes 64 seconds to resume the previous task after checking your email.

In other words, because of email alone, we typically waste one out of every six minutes.

II. How to Focus and Increase Your Attention Span

Let's talk about how to overcome our tendency to multitask and focus on one thing at a time. Of the many options in front of you, how do you know what to focus on? How do you know where to direct your energy and attention? How do you determine the one thing that you should commit to doing?

Warren Buffett’s “2 List” Strategy for Focused Attention

One of my favorite methods for focusing your attention on what matters and eliminating what doesn't comes from the famous investor Warren Buffett.

Buffett uses a simple 3-step productivity strategy to help his employees determine their priorities and actions. You may find this method useful for making decisions and getting yourself to commit to doing one thing right away. Here's how it works…

One day, Buffett asked his personal pilot to go through the 3-step exercise.

STEP 1: Buffett started by asking the pilot, named Mike Flint, to write down his top 25 career goals. So, Flint took some time and wrote them down. (Note: You could also complete this exercise with goals for a shorter timeline. For example, write down the top 25 things you want to accomplish this week.)

STEP 2: Then, Buffett asked Flint to review his list and circle his top 5 goals. Again, Flint took some time, made his way through the list, and eventually decided on his 5 most important goals.

STEP 3: At this point, Flint had two lists. The 5 items he had circled were List A, and the 20 items he had not circled were List B.

Flint confirmed that he would start working on his top 5 goals right away. And that’s when Buffett asked him about the second list, “And what about the ones you didn’t circle?”

Flint replied, “Well, the top 5 are my primary focus, but the other 20 come in a close second. They are still important so I’ll work on those intermittently as I see fit. They are not as urgent, but I still plan to give them a dedicated effort.”

To which Buffett replied, “No. You’ve got it wrong, Mike. Everything you didn’t circle just became your Avoid-At-All-Cost list. No matter what, these things get no attention from you until you’ve succeeded with your top 5.”

I love Buffett's method because it forces you to make hard decisions and eliminate things that might be good uses of time, but aren't great uses of time. So often the tasks that derail our focus are ones that we can easily rationalize spending time on.

This is just one way to narrow your focus and eliminate distractions. I've covered many other methods before like The Ivy Lee Method and The Eisenhower Box. That said, no matter what method you use and no matter how committed you are, at some point your concentration and focus begin to fade. How can you increase your attention span and remain focused?

There are two simple steps you can take.

Measure Your Results

The first thing you can do is to measure your progress.

Focus often fades because of lack of feedback. Your brain has a natural desire to know whether or not you are making progress toward your goals, and it is impossible to know that without getting feedback. From a practical standpoint, this means that we need to measure our results.

We all have areas of life that we say are important to us, but that we aren’t measuring. That's a shame because measurement maintains focus and concentration. The things we measure are the things we improve. It is only through numbers and clear tracking that we have any idea if we are getting better or worse.

• When I measured how many pushups I did, I got stronger.
• When I tracked my reading habit of 20 pages per day, I read more books.
• When I recorded my values, I began living with more integrity.

The tasks I measured were the ones I remained focused on.

Unfortunately, we often avoid measuring because we are fearful of what the numbers will tell us about ourselves. The trick is to realize that measuring is not a judgment about who you are, it's just feedback on where you are.

Measure to discover, to find out, to understand. Measure to get to know yourself better. Measure to see if you're actually spending time on the things that are important to you. Measure because it will help you focus on the things that matter and ignore the things that don’t.

Focus on the Process, Not the Event

The second thing you can do to maintain long-term focus is to concentrate on processes, not events. All too often, we see success as an event that can be achieved and completed.

Here are some common examples:

• Many people see health as an event: “If I just lose 20 pounds, then I’ll be in shape.”
• Many people see entrepreneurship as an event: “If we could get our business featured in the New York Times, then we’d be set.”
• Many people see art as an event: “If I could just get my work featured in a bigger gallery, then I’d have the credibility I need.”

Those are just a few of the many ways that we categorize success as a single event. But if you look at the people who stay focused on their goals, you start to realize that it’s not the events or the results that make them different. It’s the commitment to the process. They fall in love with the daily practice, not the individual event.

What’s funny, of course, is that this focus on the process is what will allow you to enjoy the results anyway.

• If you want to be a great writer, then having a best-selling book is wonderful. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of writing.
• If you want the world to know about your business, then it would be great to be featured in Forbes magazine. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of marketing.
• If you want to be in the best shape of your life, then losing 20 pounds might be necessary. But the only way to reach that result is to fall in love with the process of eating healthy and exercising consistently.
• If you want to become significantly better at anything, you have to fall in love with the process of doing it. You have to fall in love with building the identity of someone who does the work, rather than merely dreaming about the results that you want.

Focusing on outcomes and goals is our natural tendency, but focusing on processes leads to more results over the long-run.

III. Concentration and Focus Mind-Hacks

Even after you've learned to love the process and know how to stay focused on your goals, the day-to-day implementation of those goals can still be messy. Let's talk about some additional ways to improve concentration and make sure you're giving each task your focused attention.

How to Improve Concentration

Here are few additional ways to improve your focus and get started on what matters.

Choose an anchor task. One of the major improvements I've made recently is to assign one (and only one) priority to each work day. Although I plan to complete other tasks during the day, my priority task is the one non-negotiable thing that must get done. I call this my “anchor task” because it is the mainstay that holds the rest of my day in place. The power of choosing one priority is that it naturally guides your behavior by forcing you to organize your life around that responsibility.

Manage your energy, not your time. If a task requires your full attention, then schedule it for a time of day when you have the energy needed to focus. For example, I have noticed that my creative energy is highest in the morning. That’s when I’m fresh. That’s when I do my best writing. That’s when I make the best strategic decisions about my current happenings . So, what do I do? I schedule creative tasks for the morning. All other  tasks are taken care of in the afternoon. This includes doing responding to emails, phone calls and Skype chats, data analysis and number crunching. Nearly every productivity strategy obsesses over managing your time better, but time is useless if you don’t have the energy you need to complete the task you are working on.

Never check email before noon. Focus is about eliminating distractions. Email can be one of the biggest distractions of all. If I don’t check email at the beginning of the day, then I am able to spend the morning pursuing my own agenda rather than reacting to everybody else’s agenda. That’s a huge win because I’m not wasting mental energy thinking about all the messages in my inbox. I realize that waiting until the afternoon isn’t feasible for many people, but I’d like to offer a challenge. Can you wait until 10AM? What about 9AM? 8:30AM? The exact cutoff time doesn't matter. The point is to carve out time during your morning when you can focus on what is most important to you without letting the rest of the world dictate your mental state.

Leave your phone in another room. I usually don’t see my phone for the first few hours of the day. It is much easier to do focused work when you don’t have any text messages, phone calls, or alerts interrupting your focus.

Work in full screen mode. Whenever I use an application on my computer, I use full screen mode. If I’m reading an article on the web, my browser takes up the whole screen. If I’m writing in Evernote, I’m working in full screen mode. If I’m editing a picture in Photoshop, it is the only thing I can see. I have set up my desktop so that the menu bar disappears automatically. When I am working, I can’t see the time, the icons of other applications, or any other distractions on the screen. It’s funny how big of a difference this makes for my focus and concentration. If you can see an icon on your screen, then you will be reminded to click on it occasionally. However, if you remove the visual cue, then the urge to be distracted subsides in a few minutes.

Remove all tasks that could distract from early morning focus. I love doing the most important thing first each day because the urgencies of the day have not crept in yet. I have gone a little far in this regard in that I have even pushed my first meal off until about noon each day. I have been intermittent fasting for three years now (here are some lessons learned), which means that I typically eat most of my meals between 12PM and 8PM. The result is that I get some additional time to do focused work rather than the breakfast.

Regardless of what strategy you use, just remember that anytime you find the world distracting you, all you need to do is commit to one thing. In the beginning, you don’t even have to succeed. You just need to get started.

Where to Go From Here

I hope you found this short guide on focus useful.