How to prioritize when you have too many interests
Spoiler: Don’t do everything at once
Having a lot of interests makes you an interesting person and Jack of all trades, but you can quickly fall into decision paralysis when you want to get started.
I, for example like to take photos, make videos, earn my money through programming and UX Design, started a cooking show, want to write, love to read about philosophy and the list goes on.
Of course, I can’t do it all together and except you are a super human being, which you probably aren’t, you have to focus. One thing at the time.
When everything seems interesting, especially if you just heard about the new topic, you want everything in your life to be about that one thing and become the best at it. The key here is that you have to focus on only one task at the time. While this might seem obvious and easy for some, it can be a challenge to stick to it. If your mind is already occupied with previous projects, you either should finish those first or consciously say no to yourself on doing it and concentrate wholeheartedly on the new thing.
Set aside time and build a habit to work in small steps to reach your goal. There are already plenty of good guides on how to set achievable goals. Take your time, get started and put away all distractions for at least 10 minutes. This should slowly get you in the flow. When you reach that flow state it’s easier to stick to your task.
It can be tough to say no, but you have to do this in order to achieve anything. No worries, you won’t have to abandon your other projects forever; they should just not be a priority now. Set yourself a deadline and get to work.
Maybe you can even combine two or more things together, but you still have to focus on one priority first.
An example:
Let’s say you want to get started in writing but also like to take photos. Set your goal: Write two articles every week for a month. For me that sounds pretty achievable but still is hard work with my day job.
When I take one hour every day to write that should give me enough time to write, review and publish an article in three days. Everything else needs to be put aside. That gaming session with friends? Not today. That new framework you’ve heard about and want to test out with that great business idea you brainstormed with a friend the other night? It can wait. This memory card full of photos you wanted to edit four weeks ago? You postponed it then, so it can also be done in a month.
Pick your number one priority and do this. Only this until you’ve achieved your goal. It’s hard to say no to the other tasks on your list, but how do you want to get ten things done if you can’t even do one?
Dedicate time for your priority
Take time for whatever your choice is. Set aside at least an hour and focus on doing whatever you want to do. The goal is to get in a flow state where you are fully present on your current activity and don’t even think about doing something else at that moment.
When you get to this point, you’ll learn two things:
- How wonderful it is to be fully present in a moment. Your mind won’t be distracted, and you have full focus.
- You feel if this priority you set is the right thing to do. Either you get in a habit of wanting to have more of these moments by doing whatever you were doing and getting better at it, or you know that you can put something else as your number one priority.
I hope that you will find time for your interests and work on whatever you want to achieve!
