Multitasking as we know it today is a lie. Multitasking is neither efficient nor effective. In the real world, having your fingers in many pies is simply not sustainable. It provides you an opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time by bouncing between one thing and another and eventually you have to reorient your context back to one.

By multitasking often, you start to develop a distorted sense of how long it takes to actually do the task at hand. But what if there was a better way? What if you knew that success is about doing the right thing, and not necessarily about doing it right the first time?

Choose The Right Habit

Here's the trick to success. Choose the right habit and bring enough discipline to establish it.

Rather than completely rehaul what you deem as the right habits in your life. Start small with a single habit that you absolutely believe is the right habit. Ask yourself the following question: Who is the person I want to be in a year?

Now that you have this prompt, you simply need to ask yourself about that person, and the habits that person has. This person might:

• Run a mile everyday
• Work on a side project every morning
• Eat well by cooking every meal
• etc

It's as simple as taking one of these habits, and bringing discipline to establish it within your life. Want to run a mile everyday? Start with running everyday.

Manage Your Willpower

You have a finite amount of willpower you can exert everyday. Make sure that everytime you are approaching the right habit, you are allowing yourself to use a large chunk of your willpower to commit to the habit. In other words, most people have replenished willpower every day after sleeping. If you wanted to run everyday, try to run every morning right after you wake up. That way you can exert your newly replenished willpower and perform at your absolute best every day.

Maximum Willpower = Maximum Success

Stay In Your Lane

Life is a balancing act. The question of balance is really a question of priority. The challenge comes to be how clear your priorities are with various aspects of your life such as work, home, play, etc.

• Work - When you're supposed to be working, work.
• Home - When you're supposed to be home, be home.
• Play - When you're supposed to be playing, play.

Let the right things take precedence and stay in your lane.

Conclusion

Success in life starts within you. By bringing purpose to your life, knowing your priorities, managing your willpower, and balancing your life, anything is possible.

Jon Douglas writes at jondouglas.dev, where he writes about better habits, deep work, software development, and improved health for Software Professionals. You can read his articles or join his free newsletter for new content every week.

This article was originally published on jondouglas.dev