Have you noticed a growing pattern in your life?

The inability to complete a task either on time, or at all? Putting more on your plate than you can possibly eat?

If your attention seems to slip away from the task at hand causing you to abandon and in time forget why it was important to do the thing to begin with, you had better start asking yourself some serious questions:

1. Was the thing or experience you decided to undertake really that important?

2. What point during the “project” did you find yourself losing interest?

3. Do you have a number of “projects” which seem to slip away as incomplete time wasted distractions rather than solid building blocks that are getting you ahead in your life?

You may be out of control or worse suffereing from the dreaded disease: Multi-tasking!

My Dad used to call it: “your eyes are bigger than your stomach”. Of course he was referring to putting too much food on my plate and not being able to finish the meal. If your eyes are bigger, that is your expectations are greater than your ability to deliver with the necessary focus, dedication and discipline and complete a project you set out to do… you are setting yourself up for failure.

You may be creating distractions which never amount to anything but more days crossed off your calendar! Plus you may be reinforcing a deeper belief that you are not capable of finishing what you started. In other words, you are reinforcing some kind of failure expectation which is lurking just below the surface.

If this has been happening to you it’s time to clean house!

It’s essential to ask the tough questions:

1. Is this thing or experience really necessary?

2. What is the real reason why I can’t complete it?

3. Why did I begin this project to begin with?

4. Is this some kind of distraction in order to avoid something else?

5. Should I complete it or forget it?

You may have to begin the self discipline of telling yourself “no” before you engage in yet another project. In the real world where people actually get things done and achieve success, there is no such thing as multi-tasking! Successful people focus and complete one project at a time and then proceed to the next one.

You may be suffering from “multi-taskitus”

It’s a disease of delusion. You delude yourself into thinking you can get a number of things accomplished within the same timeline. It just doesn’t happen. It’s like paying off debt. Pay a little of the balance every month on all your credit cards and five years later you still owe a balance on all of them. Pay off one balance at a time and in five years you’re out of debt.

Multi-tasking keeps you in debt because it never let’s you put your full attention on completing a single task…

-Bob Baran