Multitask. Focus on multiple things if you want to be a failure.
It’s especially vexing in our modern world of 100 browser tabs open, podcasts on in the background, notifications popping up on the phone, and the urge to check twitter, facebook, instagram, etc… just one more time.
The media addiction many of us face destroys focus and the ability to have highly productive periods of work.
We must sacrifice the hour in front of us to the task at hand. One hour at a time, hour after hour. If you block the next hour out in your mind for your task with some vain indulgence of social media, another news article, or whatever at the end of that hour, you can slowly regain your focus.
If one hour is too long, set aside one hour, but break off the first ten minutes and sprint into the work knowing that if that goes well, you’ll commit the next hour or so before a break.
Breaking away from all the distractions we face is such a key to having any success that it cannot be understated. We must focus or die.
“A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure, who either cannot, or does not, command and direct his attention to the present object, and, in some degree, banish for that time all other objects from his thoughts. There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time. This steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind. ”