How to Allocate Your Bandwidth While Searching for Your Mission

by Justin Skycak (@justinskycak) on

One main focus, one semi-focus, and everything else a hobby with whatever time you have left over.

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If you havenโ€™t found a single mission that you want to focus your all your bandwidth on, and youโ€™re wondering how to to distribute your bandwidth so as to pursue multiple interests while avoiding spreading yourself too thin, then hereโ€™s the allocation I would recommend:

  • one main focus (workload equivalent to a full-time job),
  • one semi-focus (workload equivalent to a part-time job), and
  • everything else a hobby with whatever time you have left over. (Your remaining bandwidth is about the equivalent of another part-time job, so depending on how many things there are in that "everything else," you might have a small number of serious hobbies or a large number of light hobbies.)

The rationale:

  • You don't want to spread yourself too thin. You need to be moving at a competitive speed in at least one direction, i.e., your focus.
  • The semi-focus is like a staging area for something that you want to eventually merge into your main focus. In order to successfully complete the merge you're going to have to develop a serious degree of expertise in it, so it has to be more than just a light hobby.
  • Hobbies are mainly things that you just do for fun, but they can also serve as candidates to replace your semi-focus once you merge your existing semi-focus into your main focus.



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