I needed to hear this. It's the painful truth that you can't excel at a dozen things at the same time. It's hard when you're a person with many interests to just focus on very few. And as somebody who works full time I really only have time for one athletic and one creative hobby.
I agree with you. I work full time, sometimes 60+ hours a week. I've decided to prioritize hobbies. I must exercise daily. After that, I can do my one creative hobby. Sometimes I'm too tired to do that so I skip it.
How to manage switching gears between multiple domains. 0. Don't ask someone who doesn't "get it." Like this guy. 1. Define your outcome. Be clear about what you want to get out of that activity or goal. Plan out the steps beginning with the end in mind. 2. Prioritize. Based on what's more important or meaningful to you. This doesn't mean you drop anything. It's so you know where you need to allocate time. 3. Keep a schedule and use it. Time blocking is the best. Plan your activities and habits a week or month out in advance. 4. Track your progress for each goal or activity religiously. 5. Stay organized. Keep your goal plans, schedule(s), and progress reports for each goal together and somewhere that's easy to access. This way, you know where things are when you switch tasks or goals, and you can easily see what you've done and need to do next. This helps get you into deep work more quickly when switching tasks/goals. 6. Manage your physical and mental energy and adjust your schedule and goals according to what you can actually accomplish. 7. When you're working on a goal or task, focus SOLEY on that goal for the time you've alloted that day. This is NOT the time to be multitasking. When you're working your goal, be in the moment so you can get into a flow and make progress. 8. Read or listen to the book, "Refuse to Choose" by Barbara Sher. It's much more in depth.
I feel like more people need to hear this. With the internet, I think, it’s made people feel like they don’t pursue enough when in reality the most important areas to pursue are your job, your health and social life. Which if done right actually take up a significant amount of time as Cal points out. One or two personal pursuits is a very sensible goal. One thing I’ve realised is to make media consumption as social as possible i.e. watch a movie or tv show with friends to maximise your time, if that’s possible that is.
I know exactly how this feels! In my life I have lots of hobbies from planes, ships, watches and other things! It’s hard to juggle them all and I find that I go through phases. For a few months I follow one dominantly then when I get my mind set on another I put the others on the back burner. It sucks a lot because I find I have lots of dreams to work with a lot of these and my life is a total mess with them!
When I heard the list, it seemed to me that about half of them (including investing and cooking) seem like basic things that should definitely be in his life. But if he is struggling then he needs to lighten his load. If i were him, I would keep the essential things that really support his life (e.g. things that improve health, money, and relationships, like investing and cooking), bit move them to the backburner, or some basic maintenance level, and keep it simple. For examole, autonating his investing as much as possible, or adding one new recipe at a time and getting good at it. So those are the baseline activities thwt enhance your life. Then there are the more project based things, like the other things he mentioned. If it is a skill he wants to keep, then setting aside a few minutes a day to do it will keep him from sliding backwards and will slowly build the neural connectiins in his brain, e.g. playing guitar for 5 minutes a day would do this. Other things that have different modes of thought as he described should probably be blocked out separately, so one of those things in a day - for example, he could spend one hour a day on a project based activity, like coding or writing, and then he can do one of those things at a time. But i do think if he isn't managing it at the moment then he needs to accept that he needs to either drop something or mamage his time like a champ and prioritise things. If he is learning new skills, then he may be best to not do them at the same time but do them in sequence - e.g. guitar, then cosing, then writing. Sometimes we are in a hurry to get everything done, but when you add up the time to do 10 things, it takes the same amount of time to do 1/10 of each one every day for 10 months, or 1 aleach mknth for 10 months (although it is floften much mkre efficient to do one at a time). It IS possible to do that many things, but your progress on each one will be slow, and you will need enough time between activities for your brain to switch gears.
I needed to hear this. It's the painful truth that you can't excel at a dozen things at the same time. It's hard when you're a person with many interests to just focus on very few. And as somebody who works full time I really only have time for one athletic and one creative hobby.
I agree with you. I work full time, sometimes 60+ hours a week. I've decided to prioritize hobbies. I must exercise daily. After that, I can do my one creative hobby. Sometimes I'm too tired to do that so I skip it.
What is your creative hobby?
I've been struggling with this my entire life but I think it's time to accept reality 🙃
How to manage switching gears between multiple domains.
0. Don't ask someone who doesn't "get it." Like this guy.
1. Define your outcome. Be clear about what you want to get out of that activity or goal. Plan out the steps beginning with the end in mind.
2. Prioritize. Based on what's more important or meaningful to you. This doesn't mean you drop anything. It's so you know where you need to allocate time.
3. Keep a schedule and use it. Time blocking is the best. Plan your activities and habits a week or month out in advance.
4. Track your progress for each goal or activity religiously.
5. Stay organized. Keep your goal plans, schedule(s), and progress reports for each goal together and somewhere that's easy to access. This way, you know where things are when you switch tasks or goals, and you can easily see what you've done and need to do next. This helps get you into deep work more quickly when switching tasks/goals.
6. Manage your physical and mental energy and adjust your schedule and goals according to what you can actually accomplish.
7. When you're working on a goal or task, focus SOLEY on that goal for the time you've alloted that day. This is NOT the time to be multitasking. When you're working your goal, be in the moment so you can get into a flow and make progress.
8. Read or listen to the book, "Refuse to Choose" by Barbara Sher. It's much more in depth.
Great insights! Thanks for the book recommendation
I feel like more people need to hear this. With the internet, I think, it’s made people feel like they don’t pursue enough when in reality the most important areas to pursue are your job, your health and social life. Which if done right actually take up a significant amount of time as Cal points out. One or two personal pursuits is a very sensible goal. One thing I’ve realised is to make media consumption as social as possible i.e. watch a movie or tv show with friends to maximise your time, if that’s possible that is.
I know exactly how this feels! In my life I have lots of hobbies from planes, ships, watches and other things! It’s hard to juggle them all and I find that I go through phases. For a few months I follow one dominantly then when I get my mind set on another I put the others on the back burner. It sucks a lot because I find I have lots of dreams to work with a lot of these and my life is a total mess with them!
“To be really happy and really safe. One must have 2 or 3 hobbies and they must all be real.”
What’s scary is do I trust this or is it something I just want to hear
MY suggestion is low your expenses as low as possible leave your current job take some time for your project of any thing.
Do less ❤
When I heard the list, it seemed to me that about half of them (including investing and cooking) seem like basic things that should definitely be in his life.
But if he is struggling then he needs to lighten his load.
If i were him, I would keep the essential things that really support his life (e.g. things that improve health, money, and relationships, like investing and cooking), bit move them to the backburner, or some basic maintenance level, and keep it simple. For examole, autonating his investing as much as possible, or adding one new recipe at a time and getting good at it.
So those are the baseline activities thwt enhance your life.
Then there are the more project based things, like the other things he mentioned.
If it is a skill he wants to keep, then setting aside a few minutes a day to do it will keep him from sliding backwards and will slowly build the neural connectiins in his brain, e.g. playing guitar for 5 minutes a day would do this.
Other things that have different modes of thought as he described should probably be blocked out separately, so one of those things in a day - for example, he could spend one hour a day on a project based activity, like coding or writing, and then he can do one of those things at a time.
But i do think if he isn't managing it at the moment then he needs to accept that he needs to either drop something or mamage his time like a champ and prioritise things.
If he is learning new skills, then he may be best to not do them at the same time but do them in sequence - e.g. guitar, then cosing, then writing.
Sometimes we are in a hurry to get everything done, but when you add up the time to do 10 things, it takes the same amount of time to do 1/10 of each one every day for 10 months, or 1 aleach mknth for 10 months (although it is floften much mkre efficient to do one at a time).
It IS possible to do that many things, but your progress on each one will be slow, and you will need enough time between activities for your brain to switch gears.
You should have over a million subscribers now. Do you have someone working on that?
Thank you! The video came at the right moment at the right time for me. It’s a revelation, I needed to hear that.
Great information
Thanks for NOT answering the question
What???
Truth hurts …