Importance of the One Thing
Back in March 2020, I read the book ‘One Thing’. I took some notes while reading the book, which I intended to use for a video about the book. I never made that video I also never looked back at the notes. Today is the day I use those notes to write a blog. Weird isn’t it?
The main theme of the book is in the title. It talks about the importance of one thing. It doesn’t necessarily mean you should forget everything you want to do and just do one thing. The book talks about focusing on one thing at a time and doing that thing well, instead of trying to do too many things at once.
“To do two things at once is to do neither.”
I recommend you to read the book so I don’t want to go into much in detail. One other thing I collected in my notes was this part,
“Importance of deliberate practice. Practicing isn’t enough. We type every day but that doesn’t increase our typing skill or speed. ”
This is so important. Deliberate practice. What a beautiful term! We focus on practice so much but never think about this aspect of the endeavor. I remember during my school life we used to practice a lot in class. No matter what subject it was, before the exam season, we practiced so much. But in spite of all the practice, we did some did well while others didn’t. While intellect does play its part in this outcome but I also believe the concept of deliberate practice also holds true. For a lot of the students, the practice was done by force. It wasn’t a deliberate action. We had to do it. We had to practice. None of it was something that we wanted to do. I remember the topics I wasn’t interested in, it was really hard for me to get a good grade no matter how much I practiced.
This was just a small example from my life but I believe a lot of people have similar experiences. So whatever you're focusing on, whatever you are trying to improve at, whatever your one thing is, make sure you are deliberately practicing it. Make sure your motivation and willpower are in the right place. If it is, progress will be there with you.