A few years ago it was all the rage to see how much multi-tasking you could do. Remember? Dust some furniture, have a meaningful phone conversation, train the dog – all simultaneously. But do you remember what happened then? Nothing was done well. The furniture had to be dusted again. You had no recollection of your conversation. And the dog went on their way, not learning anything. The takeaway? Multi-tasking doesn’t work. Focus on one thing at a time.
Keep everything else chugging along
The same goes for achieving big goals. Work on one thing at a time. You’re more assured of success if the rest of your life goes chugging along the same as it has been. So you can focus on the big thing you want to change.
Too much disruption leads to failure
Leo Babauta of zen habits says that trying to change multiple things at once doesn’t work. “Your focus gets spread thin, and in the long run you end up failing to stick to any of the changes.” Haven’t you found that to be the case yourself? You want to eat healthier at the same time you want to get more sleep. Where is the time you should be sleeping, planning your healthy meals, and shopping for the ingredients? While at the same time doing everything else you had been doing before.
Something’s got to give. You may try it for a week or so, because you have to shop anyway. But then you find that you don’t have time to prep and bake Wednesday’s veggie lasagna, and you stay up until way past midnight on Thursday trying to catch up on the work assignment you need to finish by Friday because you had to take the cat to the vet.
One change at a time leads to success
Something’s got to give. A more sensible solution might have been to switch out one or two meals a week for healthier options for a month, not have a wholesale change. Or going to bed 15 minutes earlier. The change you make for that month will stick. And then you can add another change, once this thing becomes a habit. You’ll be in the mindset of getting more things done, and you’ll feel great about being successful with the change you made.
One thing at a time works. If there’s no deadline, you can make that change stick.
