Do 3 Things Great and Forget about the Rest!
As a product manager for a technology company I help design software and try to make it flexible, powerful, simple, and intuitive. It is a difficult thing to accomplish. Recently I read a blog about how great technology needs to do 3 things great and everything else it can either do ok or not at all. This is counter intuitive to how most people think. Most people want one gadget to do million different things. However, if you think about it your really don’t want that, because it would do a million things ok and nothing great.
This principle does not only apply to technology, but life. People want to be a jack of all trades or a renissance man. Everyday people try to be the best employee, best father, best husband, best citizen, best person. That is a nice goal, but it is impossible. Math would agree, if you give a 100% in one area there is nothing left for anything else. If I really want to be the best employee I would stay at work all day and all night.
I would even extrapolate this into making decisions about where to go on a vacation, which car or house to buy, or who to marry. We try to make the perfect decisions, but their is no such thing. Each decision has its trade offs. Good decision makers just know what 3 things they want and make a decision that meets those 3 needs.
So my challenge to you all is to find the 3 things you want and get an A+ in those areas. The rest settle for a C or even quit trying so that you can focus your attention on the top 3 things. Quitting has a bad connotation, but really that is what prioritizing your life is all about. Learn how to sacrifice the trivial things so that you can excel at the important things in life!