You Are Doing Too Much: Focus on One Thing | Hacker News Reader

You Are Doing Too Much: Focus on One Thing

perspective-collective.com

79 pointsnotoriousarun19 comments

I’m wondering what the author’s credentials are, since he writes with great confidence and certainty about how there is only a single correct approach to achieving success.

The reason I’m wondering is because the text makes a number of claims while citing only a handful of examples.

Should Kanye West have stuck to producing music, Elon Musk to developing financial software, George Clooney to acting, Leonardo da Vinci to painting, etc.?

A good point regarding the benefits of specialization can be made, but this particular brand of “do what you love” article filled with bold claims and bold text written by twenty-something self-appointed self-help gurus always rubs me the wrong way.

Groan. Because your average Joe is any of the people that you listed.

Neither are Beethoven or Kobe Bryant, which the author cites as examples in favor of his argument.

Even auctors of high credentials will often disagree on such matters, and they all have their research that backs up their claim, that would look quite compelling if one would not know that research of a similarly compelling nature exists that proves the antithesis.

I gain the impression that fame and credentials in a certain field are the often the product of bias and attempt to support a præconceived conclusion, as that creates sensationalist, opinionated articles that are heavily discussed, whereas “The research at this point is inconclusive and contradictory.” is not something sensationalist articles are easily written with.

There's a line somewhere near the bottom that says:

"Once you’ve mastered something and have reached a level of the highest success, you can overlap and begin to take on something else."

I don't think you or the author is wrong here, but it's more of a case of giving sufficient attention to something and that thing alone before you attempt the next thing.

Kanye just made beats until he was making beats for Jay etc., then dominated with his own records; the fashion successes have only come in the last 3 or so years. Elon cashed out with software a couple of times before the other stuff (which admittedly comes thick and fast - but he has the luxury of people to help now). Clooney was a successful (and wealthy) actor before the entrepreneurial stuff. I don't know enough about da Vinci, but perhaps he was a true multitasking polymath :-)

I think every later step is easier when you have past successes (and usually money!) behind you.

I'm absolutely sure there are people who can multitask mastery, but my take from the article was for most of us it's better to properly focus on a single something until you reach whatever you define 'success' in that area as before you leverage that into the next thing.

The author tells something about himself and shares his insights and I think it is valid. It is well-written and worth a read. Everyone might function different, we are all unique and diverse, so make of it what you can.

However, I think there are also organizations which are absolutely doing too many unfocused things without clear goals and without doing anything well, and in my experience they are no fun to work with.

Or, as Nick Offerman more memorably put it: "Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing."

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k6hZ9KdG1QU

I think this article is pretty bad IMHO.

Are there actually people who know what they should be doing yet do other things anyway? Seems like the article is addressing a situation that doesn't exist in anyone to begin with.

The issue ultimately is that people don't know what they should be doing and are stuck in what the article calls exploratory mode. OK, so the author says you have to determine what is and isn't working. That sounds straightforward, but ultimately that's the goal of your entire life.

This is slightly easier in a business context but even then the world is changing rapidly so you have to eventually regress as you re-determine what is and isn't working and ultimately go back to exploring if none of options you initially considered have prospects.

I'd argue the opposite of this article and say: "You are not doing enough. Focus on many things that complement each other."

It's also pretty crazy that in an article about focusing on one thing there's no discussion about managing risks. When you focus so heavily on one thing, turns out it works both ways and if you're no longer to do "that one thing" - you're kinda screwed.

Doing too much is a relative thing. For instance, if I am cleaning my house, I focus on cleaning just the floor and make it the shiniest floor ever, it does not solve the problem. Also, in time t, I can only clean the floor whereas my roommate can clean the entire house.

One of the realization I had while building our company is that, you can do too much as long as it fits in a framework. Someone mentioned elon's example. He does too many things, but no one questions that because he puts it is a framework of sustainability or interspace travel.

What you cannot do is half ass the effort, then you are doing too much but spread to thin.

Focusing on one thing can sometimes be actually be very dangerous and quite risky. For instance if you are focused on building a tech which is trendy and have not hedged your risks, with tech shift your idea would basically die.

(2015)

I'm not sure about this, I've found the longer you have to do something the better - if you have 4 things todo in a month then spending a week on each in turn isn't the best way.

Get one started but think about/research/explore/plan/design/start the other three - keep an eye on how much time you have left but when you get stuck/bored/want a change work on something else.

If I've completed something hard and feel good about it, a while before I want to stop work for the day I'll move on to something easier - so I leave my laptop feeling good and not knee deep in the next hard problem.

Yeah, but if you haven’t yet found something that works, then do the opposite. Do many many things at the same time.

Not too many things though. Spreading yourself too thin is an excellent way to never become good enough at anything to reap the benefits of it.

And most importantly, stop doing things that not only don't work, but don't work well enough to make room for new opportunities to try.

The article provides for this by saying that exploratory mode is fine. I recommend reading the article, it’s good.

So the article suggests we either do one thing, or more than one thing.

That's very valuable advice, thanks.

No, it does not. The article says that exploratory mode is one necessary step toward ultimately narrowing down your focus.

So we need to do more than one thing, this helps us choose one thing and focus on it, then when we want to do something else, we do more than one thing again, and choose another one thing to focus on.

Very wise. It gives us a specific order of doing things. Many things, then one thing, then many things, then one thing. I was kinda doing the opposite.

...and that one thing should be ignoring everyone around you.

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