I have a lot of interests, and I feel like I never finish anything. It’s been a few years since I’ve come to realize that I have a lot of shallow knowledge about a wide range of topics but no real experience in any of them. It’s time to sit down and create a system to manage my multiple interests so I can progress on what’s really important.
Falling in love with starting is easy. Falling in love with finishing is hard.
The idea is to identify my main areas of interest and prioritize them. Then, I’ll choose a single project relevant for one area and focus on it for at least 3 months. The other areas will get a baseline effort just for maintenance. After these 3 months I can either change my focus to another area or choose another project in the same area. This will ensure that I get at least a couple of months of true focus on something before moving on to something else.
The function that relates the time that you put into something and the rewards you get back is not linear. This is why it is important to focus on less things at a time instead of spreading your efforts into multiple smaller endeavors.
Things to keep in mind:
- Parkinson’s law
- Intensity in life
- Time management
- Merge interests
- Systems
- It’s not about time, it’s about energy
- We cannot do everything, we need to sacrifice less important interests
- Hobby seasons or the airplane technique allow us to focus deeply for a decent amount of time
- Focus on quality and intensity of practice
Main areas
Those are my main areas of pursuit, ranked from most to least important.
- Fitness - A sick man can only desire one thing: to be healthy again. Maintaining fitness and health is the top priority to build a strong foundation to all other areas of life
- Computer science - A broad topic, but it’s my main passion. It also happens to be my professional area, so I’m always improving on it through my day job.
- Language learning - The limits of my language are the limits of my world.
- Philosophy - Understanding the world around me.
The Interests canvas is a better way to visualize the different pursuits and their ramifications.
References
The Danger Of Having Too Many Interests
World’s shortest guide to becoming a Polymath
Too Many Interests, Not Enough Time
Review later
https://youtu.be/-65ZLEuqTzk
https://youtu.be/sxKu2a8glEE
https://youtu.be/zS2yF1dUYfs