Have you ever felt like life is brimming with possibilities? Yet, there’s only so much time that you have that you’d wanna do everything, but end up burning out and doing nothing?
This is the story of my life. This is the other demon that I face apart from constant procrastination. And though it has been that way for so long, it needn’t be that way.
Donkeys aren’t all they’re chalked up to be
Recently I came across this passage in a book by Tim Ferris, called Tools of Titans, where he’d asked Derek Sivers about what advice he’d give to his younger self. For context, Sivers is an American writer, musician, programmer and entrepreneur, best known for being the founder and former president of CD Baby, an online CD store for independent musicians. Sivers said, “I’d tell my past self one simple thing—don’t be a donkey.” Tim, like us, was confused about what this meant. Sivers goes on to explain by means of a story.
There’s this donkey who is both hungry and thirsty. Conveniently for the donkey, there’s both a stack of hay a bit to his left, and a pail of water a bit to his right. What the donkey finds perplexing, however, is whether it should eat the hay first or drink the water. And in this analysis-paralysis, the donkey eventually collapses and dies from both hunger AND thirst. Sivers argues that the reason this happened is that the donkey could not fathom the concept of its own future. If it could, it would realise that it could just as well drink the water first, and then go eat the hay.
The takeaway is to not be a donkey.
The Case for Focused Pursuits
This translates to what I was saying earlier. It’s much more efficient to try and focus on one area of your life at a time as opposed to trying to do everything at once. Although life is short, even then, if you try to do everything at once it will end up being a sure-fire way to half-ass multiple things. Instead, it’s much better to go with the optimum strategy and prioritising your life by focusing on one area at a time. When you feel you’ve accomplished everything you’d set out to do you can just move on to the next thing.
If you have 10 things you want to achieve in the next 10 years, then break these down by priority. Set goals, deadlines, and temper your expectations accordingly.
Not only is this a great way to approach your ambitions, but it can be a great guideline in building a better work-life balance. As a donkey, you risk harming your personal relationships in the long term in the pursuit of short-term half-baked success, and that really doesn’t benefit anyone. Not even you!
