Six months ago I promised myself I'm going to follow a strict schedule to be more productive.
it goes something like this:
First I'd wake up & go jogging for an hour.
Then I'd get back home practice guitar for 3 hours.
after that my plan was to attend an evening martial art's class.
and then at night, I would start working on my youtube channel.
For a month or so, I did pretty well, I followed the schedule from A to Z.
but then the next month, I got really sick.
I completely burned out from doing all those things at once every single day.
Do you remember how energetic you were as a child ? you could run around playing with
your friends all day long & never get tired.
Well unfortunately, as you grow older your energy levels gradually diminishes.
For this matter, you can't multitask like a robot anymore.
You have a limited amount of willpower that decreases every time you perform an activity.
Doing everything equally is purely impossible.
Your mind & body are unable to handle you practicing five skills a day.
Give up the dream of becoming a professional basket ball player, a rock star, a blogger
& a boxing coach at once.
You can't even become a professional at two seperate skills let alone five or more.
The reason for this is because
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Mastery requires approximately 10.000 of practice, that's about ten years of practice.
meaning at least four hours of training, every single day.
By devoting four to six hours a day to practice one single skill, those hours will accumulate
faster to form what we call "proficiency" or "expertise"
but if you dedicate six hours a day to practice five different skills at once, you'll end
up accumulating very few hours of practice for each one of them.
Yes you can get good at each one of them but you won't be able to master all of them, you
will remain at an intermediate level.
if you're aiming for expertise & extraodinary results, you'd better pick out that one thing
& stick to it every single day,
six hours a day, for the rest of your life.
You can't be a successful tennis player & a brilliant basket ball player at once.
just forget about it.
If you want to be an average tennis player & an average basket ball player, then go ahead,
practice both skills equally, I'm not saying it's wrong if that's what you really desire.
But if you want to be an expert, you have to pick one of them.
period.
You can't be practicing Tennis six hours a day and then at the same day, spend another
six hours training basket ball.
that's not human.
Unless you are a robot of some sort.
another common belief some guys have is,
thinking that you have to be in good shape all the time.
No.
If you're most important thing is working on your business, it doesn't kill to skip
the gym for a week, a month, six months or whatever time necessary to handle your finances.
People who own successful businesses are able to work out every day of course because they
have tons of free time.
They have already achieved financial freedom.
But if you're just a start-up founder, going to the gym every single day is just a waste
of time.
We only have so many hours in a day.
For this matter, you don't have to do all things equally.
If your goal is to build a million dollar company, you're not going be lifting weights
all evening or meditating five hours a day.
You just have to do that one thing.
everything else is seconday.
2-BUILD ONE HABIT AT A TIME: the same mistake I See people make is trying
to cultivate several habits simoultaneously.
You'll hear them getting pumped up for their "new year resolutions"
the guy is like "oh, this year, I'm going to work out every day, wake up early, write
a 1000 pages a day & I'm going to turn into a healthy diet.
And the next thing, you'll find them breaking down in despair as they were unable to keep
up with their resolutions.
Here's the thing:
Build one habit at a time.
The reason is, first, you don't have enough willpower to multitask & we've already talked
about this.
Second,
Your brain needs time to get acquainted with this new type of activity you're trying to
incorporate in your daily routine.
A habit takes about sixty six days to form.
give yourself enough time.
don't rush it.
Once a habit is deeply ingrained in your brain, it becomes effortless to execute & only THEN
can you start cultivating other habits.
In summary,
remember, build one habit at a time & give each habit enough time to form(around two
months or so).
and the second precept is:
Stop dabbling with multiple skills at once.
You cannot master more than one skill.
It takes about 10 years to gain prowess at a single craft.
if you're aiming for expertise, invest your sweat on that one thing.
this way, your focus won't be scattered here & there & you'll be able to zone in on the
task at hand & make the most of it.
And like I said earlier, If you're not interested in mastery or great success, that's fine,
brush aside all what I've just said.
You're not going to die doing what you think is right.