The phone rings. A fax comes in. There’s an email alert. Your associate needs help. The school calls about your sick child. Your Outlook chimes. There’s a LinkedIn request to connect. You’re mentioned on Twitter. Your associate needs help. Your gCal pops up. A text comes in from an unhappy client. Someone ‘likes’ your post on Facebook. Your partner messages you about dinner plans. There’s a customer at the desk.

“I really like my work,” Dan said after the talk. “It’s just that I get to the end of the day and I feel so scattered and unfocused. It’s exhausting”

I had been speaking to a group of attorneys about emotional wellness and sustainable peak performance.

Dan is not alone.

We live in a culture of distraction. We suffer from information overload.

Everything seems urgent; everything competes for our attention; everything wants to be done… now.

Except that it can’t be.

We can only do one thing at a time.

It’s when we delude ourselves and pretend that we can do it all – and all at once -that we deplete our limited resources.

We love to indulge the myth of multi-tasking. We love to feel significant and needed.

But the hits of cortisol are addictive. And continuous partial attention extracts a huge toll.

Without laser-like focus,

• We make mistakes.

• We’re unproductive.

• We become emotionally fragile.

• We experience stress and overwhelm.

• We dishonor our relationships.

• We miss opportunities.

• We end up being poor stewards of our time.

Focus is fuel. Focus is power.

Focus is the doorway to creativity and innovation.

You nurture focus through practice; you strengthen it like a muscle.

If you want to be resourceful and resilient; if you want to create deep relationships and change lives; if you want to advance your career or grow your business; if you want to serve at the very highest level and make an impact in the world, then focus.

Do just one thing.