I’ve come to realization that when it comes to making progress in life I work best in a sequential method.
Going sequentially means that if I have a goal of reading 6 books in 6 months, I would read one book at a time. Going in parallel means that I might go back and forth between books.
Expanding this to goal setting. If I have a goal of making new friends and a goal of learning a new skill, I prefer to take the approach of take a few months where I prioritize new friendships and then after that take a few months where I focus on the new skill.
A quick opposing thought is both can exist in parallel. Which they can. But goal execution is not just about doing, but about progressing at a acceptable speed and in a productive way.
For example, if I evenly split my time between those two goals it might take me 4 months to learn a skill and make a sufficient about of new friends. However, if I split up the prioritization it would take me 2 months to reach my friendship goals and then another 2 months to meet the new skill. In both cases I will take 4 months. However, the difference with the latter version is that after 2 months I will see a 100% progress in one thing as opposed to 50% in two things.
The preference ties down to personalities and philosophy. Personally I’ve found that what helps me motivated to stick to my goals is progress. In the gym I have to convince myself to go when I first get back into a routine, but once i see progress I am excited to keep going even more to keep building on that progress.
Dragging the time to completion reduces tangible progress across goals which reduces motivation.
Secondly, progress also brings momentum. Referring back to my friendship goals. If I go to a party, meet a new friend one weekend and then the next weekend they invite me out, but instead of hanging out again I stay home to work on my skill, then I’ve lost the momentum of friendship.
The reverse exists, if I stay in to learn a new skill one weekend and the next weekend I accept a party invite so I can try and meet new people, by the following week I might have to refresh my memory on what I’ve learnt so far and thus lost the momentum of learning.
I’d like to emphasize that goal completion is different than habits. For example if reading is a habit then I can feel free to flop between different books because I am not worried about being productive to reading a certain number of books. If valuing new friendships is a philosophy then I can make time for new friendships in-between my busy time.
But when it comes to goal completion, it’s important to be clear on a small set of goals, prioritize them and then make all your decisions in a set period of time prioritized to meet those goals.
Unexplained here is that there is nuance in the decision making process of what you actually prioritize, but the main idea is that it is easier to prioritize and achieve when you are working toward sone thing at a time.