How many aspects of life can you focus on at once?

[thenondualtankie]

Ideally, I want to focus on a wide variety of aspects of my life. Weightlifting and nutrition, social life and pickup, my degree, figuring out my life purpose, meditation. Would it be unwise to try and juggle all of these aspects of life at once? Or would you guys recommend focusing on one or two at a time?

Lately I've been feeling a lot of inspiration to improve myself, but the (potential) issue is that this desire for improvement seems to apply to most aspects of my life, as opposed to one or two: I wanna get better at talking to girls (still not taking much action on this one... out of fear of course), I want to level up my meditation practice at this point i.e. really figure out what this meditation shit is all about, I've been really motivated to go to the gym these days and build an amazing physique. I'm also planning on completing a pretty intense summer project for university, as well as learning to drive. I could expand this list.

Slightly rambly paragraph above but TL;DR is just the title lol. Thanks guys.

[Kshantivadin]

You know the answer. In fact, you answered your own question in this very post

Aspect of life is a distinction. Feel yourself. If you're the "fix one then move to second" guy, then by all means go do that. Maybe identify the aspects, and make a priority list. Some things fit well with others (going out to relax and practice social skills from working on a heavy project) - and others don't (studying driving after studying for uni). Or maybe they do.

Practically, look into Deep Work. This will help you dish out intense output either in creative endeavour or improvement, while also giving you time to work on the soft skills of personal development, along with recharging for the next deep work.

 

[Razard86]

17 minutes ago, thenondualtankie said:

Ideally, I want to focus on a wide variety of aspects of my life. Weightlifting and nutrition, social life and pickup, my degree, figuring out my life purpose, meditation. Would it be unwise to try and juggle all of these aspects of life at once? Or would you guys recommend focusing on one or two at a time?

Lately I've been feeling a lot of inspiration to improve myself, but the (potential) issue is that this desire for improvement seems to apply to most aspects of my life, as opposed to one or two: I wanna get better at talking to girls (still not taking much action on this one... out of fear of course), I want to level up my meditation practice at this point i.e. really figure out what this meditation shit is all about, I've been really motivated to go to the gym these days and build an amazing physique. I'm also planning on completing a pretty intense summer project for university, as well as learning to drive. I could expand this list.

Slightly rambly paragraph above but TL;DR is just the title lol. Thanks guys.

The answer really is as much as you are capable of. I will also say the cool thing is each aspect influences the other. The better in shape you are from weightlifting the more confidence you can have and the more options you will have from women. So one can make the other aspect easier. Education can also help in that as well. Meditation has the biggest influence out of all the things you lifted because it teaches you how to calm the mind. Since majority of suffering is caused by this, you can dramatically improve basically every other aspect with meditation. 

So yeah just pick a path and go all the way!! Rooting for you!!

[Galyna]

@thenondualtankie it depends.
 

If you truly want to master one thing, 80% of your you should be focused on that thing.
 

I would say no more than two aspects. 

[Kamo]

Yeah you totally can do this. That's actually what my lifestyle looks like. There is my job, weightlifting, martial arts, self improvement, social skill development, daily meditation. You just have to time block everything. Make it like a class schedule. Designate 2 main tasks a day. For example on Mondays, My 2 topics would be (study and class) I work in the morning till afternoon, then when I get home I meditate then I can study a topic until Martial Arts class in the evening. Tuesdays (Gym and study) I work the same hrs, then I go right to the gym, after I get home I meditate and study a different topic till bed. It repeats for Wed, and Thursday, Friday: work, Gym, meditation, Social skill dev. in the evening. My study sessions can be anything developmental like researching and learning new exercises for the gym, looking up nutrition information, implementing new techniques, recipes, Reading books and watching Leo videos+note taking. Mainly some kind of personal development. When you organize yourself and give time frames, it makes doing all that alot easier. You obviously cant do everything in one day. You can either have strict times you start and end things or have your tasks to be completed in a certain order and time the duration you want to spend on the activity. Like my Saturdays I dont mind what time I do certain tasks as long as I spend the proper amount of time doing them since I work M-F but im off on S.S.

This is an example, I like to make it flexible and dynamic as well, so i can move stuff around as I see fit. But generally once you have an idea of a routine you can do alot in one day. Reducing social media, and watching tv or video games also makes a world of difference on your total time available.

Saturday

Wake/Morning Routine

Qi Gong: 15min

Meditation: 45min

11:00am-1:00pm=Martial Arts

Gym-60min

Read: 30min

Personal Development:1hr

Then on Weekdays im a little more strict on times.

 

Mon/Wed

6:00am-06:20am= Wake/Morning Routine

07:30am-4pm=Work

Meditation=45min

6:00=Study Topic/ Personal Dev. 45min-1hr

7:00-9:00-Martial Arts

10:00pm-11pm-Bed

 

Tuesday/Thursday

6:00am-06:20am= Wake/Morning Routine

07:30am-4pm=Work

Gym=60min

Meditation=45min

7:30=Study Topic/ Personal Dev. 1hr

8:30 =Reading/Forum=45min-1hr

10:00pm-11pm-Bed

There is always extra time in between or after tasks in my days where I am prepping for the next morning or using the forum or just chatting with friends. So its not totally balls to the wall everyday running by the clock, so I don't get bored or burned out. Make it interesting and challenging in your topics and don't feel too pressured to meet everything, just find a nice pattern that works for you and alternate things. It takes alot of trial an error because you need to know your body and be able to manage your own energy alongside your time to be able to complete things. Hope this helps.

 

 

 

Edited June 20, 2022 by Kamo

[Aaron p]

I have this incredible incredible ability where I focus on EVERYTHING at the same time in my subconscious and I just go from one domain to the next fixing things here sorting things there and it feels all over the place but then eventually everything starts to take incredible shape and I'm like wtf I didn't even mean to do that

[Nilsi]

Visualize the person you will be when you have actualized all this stuff. Do this every day in as much detail as possible. This will act as a strange attractor and automatically put you on the path that optimizes all those things simultaneously.

In practice this will look messy and you will focus on some things more today and on others more tomorrow but as long as you have this unifying vision for yourself you are on the right path.

Of course you will have to work your ass of so be prepared for that lol

Edited June 22, 2022 by Nilsi

[Snader]

It's great if you can discipline yourself to follow habits of slowly improving yourself in multiple aspects, but better be careful, cause you're prone to burnout there.

You can try to juggle with 10 balls, but be wise enough to come down when it feels too much. It's surprising how much it takes energy when actively doing hard work on something, even though you calculate you have enough hours for it all. 

I prefer quality over quantity and baby-step approach over everything fast. If you get too tired it starts eating from your ability to improve.

Get to work and keep making adjustments.

[Kshantivadin]

Tiny habits by BJ Fogg. Read it now. Immediately. Life-changing. Pertinent to your situation. The moment is never right - do not delay.

[Kshantivadin]

On 6/22/2022 at 10:40 PM, Snader said:

I prefer quality over quantity and baby-step approach over everything fast. If you get too tired it starts eating from your ability to improve.

The trap is people usually use this (myself included) to subtly give less than 100% effort and enable laziness and mediocrity and selling yourself short.

The trap with the other approach is that some people don't do it gradually enough for it to be sustainable, like you said.

On 6/22/2022 at 10:40 PM, Snader said:

Get to work and keep making adjustments.