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You Don’t Need More Time, You Need More Focus

The myth that keeps you stuck

Eve Arnold
Practice in Public
3 min readJan 8, 2025

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Photo by Alex Kalinin on Unsplash

Back in 2018, I was desperate to quit my job and build a business.

The trouble was, I didn’t have the time — so I told myself. What I really needed to do (so I told myself) was quit my job so I had the time to build something for myself.

So I could be free, I could work on my true ambitions, so I could make my own mark in this world and do the things I truly wanted to do.

Turns out though (and it took me 3 years to fully work this out) I didn’t need more time, I needed more focused. Here’s what I did instead.

More time doesn’t equal more output

The law of diminishing returns is relevant here.

There is this theory that you will do more work if you have more time. That’s true, until it’s not. For me, that works up until hour 3. By that point, more time doesn’t equal more work, it equals more procrastination.

Let me explain.

You see, all time is not created equal. For example, one hour at the start of my day is about 3x more productive than one hour at the end of my day. Why? Because at the start of my day I have most energy.

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Practice in Public
Practice in Public

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Eve Arnold
Eve Arnold

Written by Eve Arnold

100K audience | Work 9-to-5 | Build and scale your career & digital product business: https://evearnoldwrites.substack.com

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