DIVERSIFY OR SINGLE-TASK?

Importance of Focus and Time Management

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“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. It means saying no
to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.”

-Steve Jobs

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Introduction

I might ask myself what if I have superpowers and I can absolutely make everything happen? This is a
euphoric, though an unrealistic feeling. My abilities are not as versatile as anybody else’s and we, humans, are
not designed like robots to execute various tasks once at a time and still achieve perfect outputs.

The human capacity is designed to execute various activities and abilities. However, not all of us are
designed to work best when we deal with lots of works and concentration once at a time. Basically, multi-
tasking is not a guarantee that a person can achieve the most optimal output because it may be prone to
erronous details due to lose of focus. In contrast, when we relate this idea with financial capacity, it deals more
on diversification of assets in order to expand the economic opportunities and generate more ventures for
private incentive. But the human body does not work like financial diversification. The human system has
limitation in terms of focus while finances can explore endless possibilities. When we manipulate our human
abilities, we might be damaging the natural flow of our effectiveness because humans have physical and
mental limitation. But when we manipulate our finances through the diversification of assets, we are creatively
generating strategic ways to invest in our economic status but not necessarily affecting human physical and
mental capacity.

The main point of my paper is to argue that our personal focus has limitations as opposed to
dispersing time and money at diversifying the risk and embark on ten to twenty different activities
simultaneously. If diversification in finance is a valuable strategy to protect investors from volatility and
financial disaster, in personal life, diversification and multi-tasking is the enemy of focus and maximization of
individual talents. It is good if I have invested my talents to a lot of activities but focusing in my one talent will
give me theability to sharpen my focus that will greatly increase my comparative advantage. But if I invest my
time and energy to a lot of tasks that I admittedly affirm that I can not finish with great and polish, my energy
and time will just go in vain. Diversifying business ventures will help the risk-takers of sales to invest in a lot of
areas because there are endless possibilties of utilizing the money.

This book will also explain how diversification in the way you use your time and resources prevents
you from achieving your true potential as an individual and in your investments. If you are not focused on your
goal, if you do not plan accordingly, but you rather simply “diversify” your activities by pursuing various and not
correlated goals, your efforts will be negatively affected and your actions will be unfruitful. You will end up
postponing or giving up on your dreams.

The Two Faces of Diversification in Personal Ways and Finance Management

 As a young manager working in Finance alongside global investment funds, I have always been
fascinated by the fast pace environment that the banking industry offers. I have always wanted to better
comprehend what triggers investment decisions. Armed with determination, books, and invaluable connections
with large institutional investors, I embarked in a long lasting journey that finally led me to the realisation that
“diversification” is nothing else but a conservative and overly acclaimed strategy to protect not-so-good
investors from not-so-well-evaluated investment decisions.Is this what I will be writing about throughout the
entire book: finance and portfolio strategies? Absolutely not! After taking a deep dive into the depths of
portfolio and investment strategies, I came back to the surface with a much more compelling question that
affects all our lives. What do successful people do with their time and resources? Did they diversify or go all in
on their bets?

Our personal ways and finances are quite in far spectrum with each other unless we will use a uniform
unit of study. Now let me enlighten you with the idea of diversification and multi-tasking in the context of
business and personal ways. This idea is very much amenable to thebusiness and corporate goals because
they drive towards ambitious yet realistic leap of diversifying their assets and increase the revenue. However, I
do not think diversification [of individual focus] optimally aids in my personal performance whatevery activity am
I doing. I can not stand multi-tasking and attending to lots of activities at a single time. I am not a money that
can be easily manipulated and put into various business ventures. I am a person who knows my limitations
most especially when I aim for a very good performance. I believe that the singularity of my focus helps me to
become more creative and with what I am doing unlike when I do have lots of plans in mind that I do not even
know how to execute each one. I rather have one task to accomplish at a time than to work on lots of things
simultaneously but not being satisfied with my outputs.

I work in a financial institution in London and I can say that I really appreaciate the risk of businessmen
diversifying their assets to various business ventures and still generate a lot of profit at the same time. Yes, I
know to myself that they are capable of moving the money but I hardly imagine myself being put to a lot works.
I might not concentrate well with that. I might risk the output. I might fail the performance. This is the reason
why I subscribe to the idea that the singularity of my focus unlocks my productivity in whatever endeavor I have
to undertake. Having a strategy of diversifying financial assets can mean protection on the part of the investors
though they are exposed to minimum risk, which can be inevitable. This is an attempt to hedge funds to
outweigh the perceived risks so as to absorb any circumstancial market failure. But the human ability is in
contrast with this ability because we can not manipulate the natural system of our body, unless otherwise we
are willing to take risks it might entail. Financial diversification can be flexible but at a certain extent only.

In financial language, the process of diversification entails the allocation of capital in such a way that it
reduces costs for the assets. It also aims to magnify the capital outlay thorugh exposure to different activities as
the capital responds differently to various situation and type of investment. To put it in a simplified context, the
idea is reflected to one of the profound words of technological entrepreneur, Elon Musk, when he said “ It's OK
to have your eggs in one basket as long as you control what happens to that basket.” This
means that if we drop the basket, all of the eggs it contained will break. But if we put the eggs in several
baskets, there are risks of breaking the eggs but not all of it. As a result, the basket should be taken care of so
as to reduce the risk of dropping the eggs. I can say that the more we invest our money in lots of businesses,
the more the return of investment will be, depending on the market scenario. So let me say that if I invested to
certain unit trust fund and earn only a little for that particular period of time, my investment in retailing
enterprises have grown significanlty and this is just only one of the various activities where I pooled in my
money.

In the language of our personal ways, investing a lot of enrgy into different tasks undertaken all at
once does not help us to become more productive and achieve outputs efficiently. Thus, I always practice the
singularity of focus. It is better to dedicate my energy into one job at a time in order to induce a feeling of
satisfaction if I am able to attend to it and the energy and time I have invested will not go futile. Saving time
and energy are two of the best ways to re-fuel our motivation and creativity to produce much better outputs.

Visualize Your Dream and Realize it with Strategies

Dreaming is a natural human phenomenon. It can sometimes guide me in determining the steps, and
the underlying risks, to achieve what I have been longing for. Dreaming is an art of visualizing things that we
need to perform and make it happen. Visualization is an art of imagining things from its micro-details to the
bigger picture. Along with it are our ways and processes to achieve react and achieve such perceived
situation. When we try to visualize, what do we see? Are we effective at that or are we easily distracted by the
simple interruptions in the environment? Being a detailed and organized are not only the pre-conditions for a
person to be creative in visualization. Even first-timers or new to this strategy will help us contain
procrastination because we tend to fill our minds with ideas that can help us to be more productive. Practicing
visualization on a daily basis will help us stay aware and mindful of what is going on around. Visualization is a
great partner to meditation because it helps us think deeply and concentrate very well. To quote the words of
Buddha, “The mind is everything. What you think you become”.

When we visualize, try to re-create images of things and think of the positive ones. In transition of a
day’s work, when ever we have time, try to practice visualization coupled with basic meditation. It will help us
release the negative ions of stress in the workplace and it will re-fuel the mental energy for another day’s work.
This way, we come prepared for work the following day, we already know what to do and what are the ways to
make us on track of everything. If we had a good night sleep, focus becomes more evident. But I suggest
before dwelling in to the art of visualization, you must first master the simple skills of waking up early before
immersing to this more complex strategy.

The power and creativity to visualize will help us set our objectives and the steps on how to achieve it.
I always dedicate my plans to succeed. This is the reason why I really need to visualize everything and weigh
in the possibilities and impossibilities. Since I only have limited time, energy, and resources, I better go with a
plan and detaied startegies in mind. Every accomplishment starts with a single step. Every success starts with
a dream and start journeying it with realistic approach.

Limit Multi-Tasking: The Power of Single-tasking to Boost Productivity

 The world renowned inventor Alexander Graham Bell once said, “Concentrate all your thoughts upon
the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to focus.” Our ability has limitation and I dare say
that I some of us can really find it hard to focus on one task at hand most especially if we are dealing with a lot
of workloads trying to be accomplished in a tight deadline.

As a finance manager, I was often overwhelmed by the world’s fast-paced innovations. I honestly say
I am affected by the need to multi-task in order to catch up with what is going around. I always multi-task and I
have even learned to practice this craft. I learned to multi-task before and I think it is pretty amazing. But in the
long run I just realized that having a lot of tasks to be done simultaneously did not really help me with my
productivity. This is the reason why I shifted to the singularity of my focus and no longer diversified my
concentration despite the near deadline. I always believe that if I have accomplished one little task at hand, it
has greatly boosted my self-esteem and re-fueled my productivity because of the feeling of satisfaction and
accomplishment.

I have always been telling my friends and colleagues to refrain from multi-tasking, instead, undertake
one task at a time in order to save time and energy. Multi-tasking makes me less efficient because of the
constant need to gear on with the new tasks and switch back to another task again. This is a tiring cycle for me
and I do not really recommend it to you. I do not have super powers and I know my limitation in terms of focus.
But I can assure that if I focus in one thing, I can totally expect great output from it because I have dedicated
my time, energy, and most especially, focus, to that particular task. I do not necessarily subscribe to the idea
that multi-tasking releases my creativity. No. When I multi-task, it has become more complicated and thus it
may compromise my work due to a lot of errors and I will revise and re-do the work all over again. I find it tiring
and stressful. In this chaotic world that we are living in, I do not want myself to go along with the crazy chaos of
fast yet questionable outputs. I always tell to myself that if I really wanted to be organized, then I should stop
entertaining various works at a time because it does not only stress me out but it just conjures the negative
vibes for me to procrastinate. So, what is the point of having lots of task to work out but none of them were
efficiently performed? It could be a waste of time and energy. I have read lots of research findings arguing that
the human brain can only efficiently handle one thing at a time and once we get used to switch to a lot of
activities, our attention span will be lessened and thus our focus and concentration will get impaired in the long
run. This can result to the difficulty of focus sooner. Unlike in financial investments, I can risk my resources
diversifying it to a different business ventures because in financial world, the possibilities are endless be it
beneficial or risky. It is only a matter of strategy and clear-cut objectives that I need to master in order to
maximize the resources I have invested in various financial activities, even simultaneously.

Multi-tasking is quite difficult to resist most especially there are times that really require us to double up
our effort in accomplishing tasks. Multi-tasking is attractive and you should not fall to its trap. The illusion of
having ‘more’ jobs to be done is so strong to pass up and so we resort to this. However, I do not really advise
to multi-task if we can only focus to a single task at a time. We, human beings, are designed as single-core
processors unlike the computers. For example, we can not be effective enough in checking our e-mail while
asking someone for feedback and take note simultaneously. We are only giving more stress to our brain and it
degrades our motivation and productivity. I always dedicate an undivided attention when I accomplish even
just a small task at hand. When I multi-task, I feel that I am robbing myself of focus and concentration and it
makes me less productive. This is the reason why I resort to single-tasking because it helps me sustain my
focus and it gives me more energy and ideas to work on more complex problems. If this happens, my stress
level falls down and it helps direct my full focus to achieve a more productive work.Business magnate and
Alibaba Group Executive Jack Ma once said, "If there are nice rabbits on the ground and if you want to catch
one, just focus on one."

Diversification: A Glass Ceiling on Your True Potential

Multi-projecting to lots of tasks is also synomymous to diversifying your resources, time, and energy to
various channels. As a finance manager, I am well aware of this and I am often tempted to do various tasks at
a time. I can truly relate diversification of finances to multi-tasking with our activities. The former is directed
towards maximization of resources but the latter states otherwise in my own experience. I can not determine
my true capacity in a certain task if I have to attend to various workloads. The concept of glass ceiling is put
here to emphasize that we are the ones who hinders the efficiency of our performance. I know for myself that
once I focus on a single task, I will have no problem with the output because I have given my time and
concentration to that particular task. However, if I keep on entertaining more works without even finishing a
single task, or so I call diversification of focus, I can not achieve satisfactory result and it will only lead me to
stressful and brain-draining environment. No one wants to work on pile of taks with deadlines flagging all over
your concentration. The risk of diversifying your limited time and resources is that it will enable you to
procrastinate because you will lose focus. I suggest that it is much safer to handle one task at a time so as to
ne more productive and give yourself a feeling of satisfaction after every single task accomplished.

The concept of glass ceiling in application to multi-tasking and diversification of focus suggests the
idea that when we lose concentration, it will impair our critical thinking and will affect the over-all job success of
our performance. I dare say that all of us have various capabilities and can make amazing things happen. But
what is the startegy to attain such? This is where focus comes in. When we are managing our time and
energy efficiently, we can maximize the comparative advanatge by focusing on one task alone. Yes, we might
be only accomplishing a single task at a time but what is more rewarding is that the task was done with
accuracy and good success. Therefore, we can uncover our true potential and break the glass ceiling that
hampers us from determining the specialized capacity that we have. It is the time that we can discern that we
can be actually good in writing, scientific investigation, linguistics, communication, and the likes. We break the
glass ceiling because we can attain our direction by using the specialized skills that we have as long as we
keep our focus in every task at hand.

Time as a Limited Resource: Power of Time Management

Time is gold. This might be trite adage but it really makes sense most especially when we try to
achieve a very good output. If we are passionate with what we are doing, we have to disregard any
distractions and start focusing on what needs to be doen and treat every single tick of time as a precious
resource that you want to invest and not waste on it. Time management is a very good investment. Though it
does not directly give us money, it changes our perspective on how to achieve efficient working habits and
boost our creativity. This is a kind of practice that most people do not observe and thus they were left with
compromises in their outputs. But as a young manager of a financial institution, I am lucky to know how the
world works and I am able to adjust to what is happening around. I strongly affirm that diversifying our financial
resources to various investments means exciting opportunties for our money to grow. But the diversification of
time and talent does not always do well to humans. Sometimes, we are better off doing a single task rather
than to pressure ourselves in completing different tasks all at once. And I can prove to this. I often commit a lot
of errors if I cram in finishing lots of outputs in the last minute. But I am always satisfied with my work if I have
fully focused on one single task before I switch on to another task. Time is a precious element and multi-
tasking does not extend it. It creates an illusion that we are accomplishing many outputs well in fact we are
only wasting time and energy because works that are not carefully handled are not as promising as those
which were focused on.

You will get better in time management once you have figured out how the priorities that you need to
cater first. These priorities basically necessitate your full focus thus, motivating you to practice the singularity
of your focus. In my personal recount, single-tasking imparts me a common ability because I have improved in
identifying the things that can effectively or ineffectively utilize my time. I know how to handle taks and
prioritize every single one of them in certain time that I deemed reasonable enough. When I cut out the
distractions at home and at school, I easily let go of unimportant things and focus on things that really matter to
me. This also help me boost my creativity and productivity to undertake more challenges because I have
somehow mastered the language of time management and deal with workload no matter how easy or difficult
they are. Time is a vital element in our daily life. "What I've learned is that if you really want to be successful at
something, you'll find that you put the time in. You won't just ask somebody if it's a good idea, you'll go figure
out if it's a good idea", said Marc Cuban, a successul entrepreneur who owned the  Dallas Mavericks
professional basketball team, Magnolia Pictures, and Landmark Theatres.

Simple Hacks to Wisely Manage and Avoid ‘Diversification’ of Time

Avoid distractions – Clear everything away from your sight except the task that you need to
accomplish. When you are going to focus on e-mail, close all unnecessary tabs in the computer so as to resist
opening it. Do not get easily distracted by people passing around or the buzz of petty talks in the other cubicle.

Put your phone in silent mode - When you are in the zone and in the middle of doing the project that
requires intense focus, a beep of your phone ultimately becomes a distraction.Silencing your phone helps you
achieve a more peaceful environment when you are in the middle of concentration. And just like most of the
people, a lot of us can not resist attending to our phone once it beeps. Once we have the phone at hand, we
checked our e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts without realizing we have consumed a
lot of time doing such. Afterwhich, we lost our focus because we have been interrupted and invest on another
time to focus again.

Formulate a to-do list – It is important to have a daily to-do list in order for you to catch up with what
needs to done. In my personal recount, never a day passed that I can not cross out my to-do list because I can
not be satisfied enough when I leave something behind in my list. As much as possible, I have to accomplish
all the tasks in my list. Every end of month, I always update my Monthy Coverage Plan (MCP) in order to
overshadow the things I need to prioritize in the days to come.

Say “NO” when you are tempted to multi-task –As what I have previously stated, I strongly recommend
not to multi-task if you really wanted to have a great and error-free output. Focus is the key to good
performance and job success. You can not serve two ‘gods’ at a time as proverbially said. Multi-tasking drains
our brain and it can create stress and anxiety to us. I do not want to work with those apprehensions in mind. I
want a clear mind to kick off every single task that I handle. If we deliberately attend to lots of task at once, we
are depriving ourselves of focus and sense of accomplishment. It is best to focus on a single task one at a time
to unlock your productivity.

Diversify your assets but not your time and focus –As much as we want to increase our finances
through diversification, our human capacity is limited as such. We are adapted to process single tasks and that
what makes us more efficient. Investing with your finances is different from investing in time and focus. Your
finances can have ebbs and flow but your time and focus are elements that can not be reversed. Once we
wasted out time, it is forever lost. I urge you to be more careful where to invest your time because your job
performance and success, along with your personality development, also relies on how you strategize to value
your time. Focus. Time is precious. Never take it for granted.

Conclusion

What I have written in this book is purely a personal recount. I do not represent any organization nor
corporation but this book was written to enlighten the readers on how to manage time wisely in order to help
the readers grasp some ideas of the importance of focus and time management. We have to admit that we are
not as flexible as financial assets that can be easily diversified. We should aknowledge our limitations but
when we are in focus of our tasks, we are very much capable of doing amazing things. Time is a precious
element. It can not be bought nor retrieved in contrast with finacial investments. I recommend to everybody to
practice a healthy habit of focusing to one task at a time in order to unlock our full potentials and execute every
job with great accuracy and efficiency. In the end, we are still responsible for our own job success worthy of our
time and attention. So, why not make it right?

I am not a pro in suggesting you have to relax all the time and focus on one task only. I dare say that
the more relaxed you are, the better you perform. The more organized you are, the more work you can
accomplish. The more you focus and concentrate in a single task, the more you achieve great outputs by
quantity and quality. Therefore, if you have more great outputs efficiently done once at a time, the more time
you invest. The more time you have, the more opportunities you have to earn more. I will end this book with a
saying from one of the America’s richest entrepreneurs Warren Buffett who once said “You’ve gotta keep
control of your time, and you can’t unless you say no. You can’t let people set your agenda in life.”

Aim high. Never lose your focus. Succeed in life.