Stop Making Your Life Into a Balancing Act

The desire to be a jack of all trades is a slippery slope. It’s nice to be in control of many things at once. But this sort of balancing act requires an endless succession of compromises.

Have you ever tried to start a daily exercise routine? Or a daily reading habit? Or some other daily practice? As you stack up more tasks, your ability to do each one drops exponentially. If you’ve only got two hours in the morning, you have time to do one or two things very well. Or you can half-ass five or six things.

The same idea applies to your work life. Many corporations these days seek to cut costs by asking employees to do more and more. The result is almost always a short-term financial gain, followed by a long-term loss of quality. Your customers or clients will only tolerate so many typos. They won’t notice that one employee is doing the work of three — until they can’t help but notice.

Stop trying to do everything until you can do one thing very well.