But what if I told you that this is just a lie? A lie that prevents you from reaching your true potential and achieving your goals, trying to live a balanced life often causes stress, frustration, and exhaustion.
In trying to do everything, we end up with multiple tasks and move from one task to another, wasting precious time instead of being productive. It is time to give up achieving this balance and start focusing on one thing at a time, not just anything. It is the only thing that will make the greatest impact and achieve the greatest results.
In this article, I will explain why over-balancing is actually holding you back and weakening your productivity. I will introduce you to the steps you can take to organize your time more effectively, identify the task that is most important to achieving the results you want, and then show you how to focus on this one task and how to be more productive. You will find that once you focus on the most important task, you will be more efficient and finally start to make the progress that you know you are capable of.
Deep work to increase your productivity
Have you ever been so thoughtful or engaged in a task that you haven't heard anyone call your name, even though they’re right in front of you? This is the magical state called deep focus, where we can achieve the most significant productivity and results in the shortest period of time.
In his book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport defines deep work as the ability to focus without distraction on a challenging cognitive task. Deep work is achieved when we are motivated to work on something important and not have to give in to external distractions or tasks. Unfortunately, everyday life prevents us from achieving this kind of focus and productivity. Instead, our minds are all over the place, trying to balance many tasks at once.
Multitasking hinders concentration at work
Working on multiple tasks—so that you can contain everything—prevents you from prioritizing what is important and focusing intently on your most important goals. When you try to do all your tasks at once, you become distracted, and the focus shifts every few minutes.
Every time your focus shifts, you lose minutes of your work time, not only on what distracted you but also on the time it takes afterward to refocus on what you were doing in the first place. Give yourself time to focus on one thing; you will achieve greater results in less time.
80/20 rule and productivity
The 80/20 rule states that 80% of our productivity is the result of only 20% of our efforts, meaning that we use only 20% of our time effectively. But what if you learn to focus intently on the most important task?
This is when you achieve as much productivity as possible in a fraction of the time. Instead of spending 80% of our time on inefficient multitasking, focus on what's most essential and then use the remaining time for everything else.
Steps to achieve deep work and increase productivity
1. Identify what is most important
Identifying what you need to focus on at any time may initially seem daunting. You want to check for many things in your never-ending to-do list, but those cravings for a to-do list lead to ineffective multitasking, so how can you instead set your mind on only the most essential tasks that produce the most results? First, decide what is most important.
In their book, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, Gary Keller and Jay Papasan recommend shortening your long list of tasks and deleting the least important ones so that only 25% of the most important ones remain, and then further shortening that list so that you only have 5 things left; these five tasks now form your list of success; instead of the random tasks that you need to accomplish, you now have a list of the most important things that will achieve the best results for you.
Then, dig deeper by choosing only one task from your list of success, and it will be the main task that, if you focus your time and energy on it alone, will bring you the best results.
2. Set long-term goals and divide them into short-term goals
Another process I want to do when I need to set or reconsider my top priorities is to think about what I want to achieve in the long term and then revisit my work to create a list of goals that I need to focus on to achieve my long-term goals. These are the tips I use to set my short-term priorities and daily tasks:
- Imagine where you want to be in 10 years. What job will you get? How will you spend your time? How will your financial condition be? And how will your health be? etc. Make a list of the most important goals you want to achieve 10 years from now.
- Try to narrow down the list to a few of the critical achievements most important to you and your life.
- Now imagine where you want to be five years from now and to be on track to achieve your desired goals in 10 years; these are the goals for the next five years.
- Next, think about what you need to focus on over the next year to be on track to achieve the subsequent five-year goals, which will be your one-year goals.
- Think about what you need to achieve over the next quarter and month, and break down your monthly goals to have a list of actionable tasks you can focus on this week.
3. Define your personal short- and long-term goals
“By putting your dreams and goals on paper, you set in motion the process of becoming the person you most want to be. Put your future in good hands—your own,” said Mark Victor Hansen. It's not a quick and easy process, but it's worth it. That said, if you want to achieve extraordinary results and live your best life, you need to define your goals.
4. Divide short-term goals into action steps
Research suggests that writing down goals is key, even if that's all you do to stay ahead of your work. In a study on goal setting by Dominican University professor of psychology Dr. Gail Matthews, those who wrote down their goals were more likely to succeed than those who didn't. If you wanted to do more, breaking your goals down into actionable tasks that you could include in your daily schedule makes you more likely to succeed.
5. Identify your one thing for each goal
Start by writing down the three most important goals for the month, and review every day each goal and action step that you need to take on this day. So what is the most critical step? What task will produce the most results and require the most effort? That will be your only mission.
6. Schedule only one thing
Set one thing for each goal; while I like to include my three most important goals, I make sure to highlight the individual task that achieves the best results. Each of your goals is a high priority, but you have to identify one task that requires the most focus and achieves the best results, and then do this task first and do deep work.
7. Schedule your time and monitor it
You need to use the available time to be present and focused on your only task. You can do this by selecting one task and nothing else during this time, allocating time for essential tasks, choosing early in the day when you are more focused and productive, and then filling the rest of the time with everything else.
For example, if you have an important work project, set an uninterrupted time to work in your office between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. and put a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on your door. Then allocate the remaining working hours for meetings, email, and lower-priority tasks. Similarly, when you are at home and make enough time for your family, focus on the family, refrain from checking your email or thinking about your next work day, and do it after you have finished spending your time with the family.
8. Learn to say “no”
There are so many distractions in our lives—too many unproductive meetings, junk emails, social media, and constant checking of the phone during the short period devoted to your mental comfort—and the list is endless. No matter what you are trying to focus on, you will likely be distracted from what is really important because of countless things.
- Reject completely unnecessary meeting invitations; instead, find a way to get the meeting minutes or relevant information you need later.
- Put a sign on your office door saying that you are unavailable and will be back after a certain time. This way, you can prevent people from stopping to ask or comment randomly.
- Turn off email notifications so you don't get distracted by incoming messages. Better yet, install an app like Focus that prevents you from checking for or receiving updates via email, news, and social media.
- Turn off your phone or forward calls directly to voicemail so you won't be distracted by phone calls or texts.
- Make a plan for your day in advance so you know how much you can do and when. Then, when someone asks for more, you can gently say no, then schedule them for later in the week to help.
How do you guarantee everything else?
Start living an integrated life, let the right things take priority when it's time to do them and take care of the rest when you can.
The one thing
The balance you have chosen in your life depends on your goals and what is needed to achieve them. This will not be a balance but rather an integration that focuses heavily on one or another goal for specific periods. Specifically, your workday will be an integration between the most important things and then the rest of the other things. Using the 80/20 rule, the task that achieves the best results will be 80% of the focus, with the time left to take care of other things, such as meetings, email, and smaller tasks.
Similarly, life and family will integrate with multiple areas that require your attention, so be aware of where your focus should be. Give your full attention to the time it needs, and then move to the next stage. When you are supposed to work, work, and when you are supposed to play, play; only when your priorities are mixed do things collapse.
Conclusion
Trying to get everything done at once and balancing all areas of life eliminates your ability to get things done. Multitasking may provide the illusion that you are making progress, but switching from one task to another wastes time and mental skills. Instead, focus on the most important thing you can do. Let it be your primary task and learn how to live a balanced life.
An integrated life lets you focus on what matters most and achieve the best results. Put most of your effort into tasks that help you achieve your goals, then do the rest when you can, and use your most valuable resource, time, to maximize your benefit, live your life to your fullest potential, and choose an integrated life instead.
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