In a world of so many responsibilities, so many things to do, so many distractions, how do we decide what to do?

We all have instinct, an inner voice that is almost always directing us to do what is most important at any given time. I don’t know the exact name for this. It could be our conscience, or some type of alarm that our brain has. But that’s not important. What is important is that it exists, and that you and I have the ability to know, at any particular moment in time, what we should do right now.

It was this alarm that urged me to write this post. Of all the things that I have to do, I felt a strong urge to write this immediately, not later. But I can already hear the next alarm telling me that I have to finish this, go to a meeting I have scheduled and that I have to prepare for and attend it in a few minutes.

Obviously, we are not always obedient to this alarm. Like the alarm that wakes us up in the morning, we want to silence it and sleep a little longer… But the skills of discipline and self-control quickly deal with the alarm, and push the distractions out of the way.

We can only do one thing at a time. Recent surveys have discovered that multitasking—the ability to do more than one thing at a time—is a myth. In reality, when we try to do more than one thing at a time, our brain keeps switching from this thing to that in an attempt to do more than is physically possible. The result is a loss of concentration, and consequently a loss of time (from the constant starting and stopping,) and of course a loss of quality in the job. We do our very best when we focus on one thing at a time.

So then, listen to this inner alarm. It is of utmost importance.

Hold on to this phrase as a reminder:

Always do the first thing on your list, never the second.

(As you might have noticed, after the first thing on the list is done, number two becomes number one, and so on.)

My number two just became my number one.

See you tomorrow!