Too Many Things, Not Enough Progress
For the ones who can do many things but are learning to choose just one.
Some weeks, I feel like I’m in motion constantly planning, designing, coding, writing, mapping out ideas and still end the week unsure what I actually finished.
It's not burnout.
It’s saturation.
Not because I'm lost. I know what I care about.
But when everything feels important, focus becomes a luxury.
The pattern I keep seeing in myself
I’ve always been someone who can juggle multiple domains engineering, product, design, content, even business models. I like building things end to end.
But over time, that strength turned into noise.
I’d start writing a blog series.
Midway, I’d sketch out a new product.
Then context switch into interview prep.
Follow that with a deck for a freelance pitch.
And somewhere in between, planning for future and design a personal finance app.
It wasn’t the workload that wore me down, it was the number of open loops.
This isn't about motivation
I’m not struggling to get started. I’m struggling to choose.
And that’s harder in some ways. Because when you're capable of doing many things, choosing one feels like closing doors you know you could open later.
But that’s the trap.
Everything can’t be a priority.
Everything can’t matter equally.
And just because I can build it, doesn’t mean I should, right ?
The illusion of momentum
When you're good at thinking across contexts, you start mistaking motion for progress. I did.
I could make progress on 5 different things every week, but none of them felt like they were compounding.
I was building sideways, not forward.
It got to a point where I had to pause and ask:
What am I actually moving forward?
I didn’t like how long it took to answer.
So I made one decision
Not a productivity hack. Not a new app. Just a call.
For this stretch, I’m choosing depth over variety.
That means fewer moving parts.
Not because the other ideas aren’t worth doing, but because trying to do them all at once is the reason they aren’t moving.
So right now, I’m focused on rebuilding my technical edge through structured prep, focused problem solving, and some personal technical writing.
Not to get a job or be relevant. Just to clear mental space, sharpen execution, and rebuild momentum on my own terms.
My system now is simple
Google sheet with three columns:
Now: top priorities for this cycle
Next: queued up, but not urgent
Later: I still care, but they can wait
And I work in 6 day cycles.
Each cycle gets three things.
That’s it.
No overthinking. No guilt for what’s paused.
What I’ve learned so far
You don’t need to do everything right now.
You need to do something clearly.
Letting go of that internal pressure, to act on every idea the moment it shows up, is a skill I’m still learning. But every time I do it, I get a little more energy back.
What’s changed since
I’ve started finishing things again.
Small things. Focused things. But they’re shipping.
And that feeling of closing loops instead of creating new ones is underrated.
It’s also the only way I’ll ever get the big things out into the world.
If you're wired like me
If you’re someone who can see too much, too fast, you’re not broken.
You’re just saturated.
And clarity isn’t going to come from journaling or buying another productivity app.
It comes from making a call.
What’s the one thing that, if done, would make the rest easier?
Pick that.
Let the others wait.
Not forever.
Just for now.