Don’t be a donkey

I just recently heard episode #125 of the Tim Ferriss Podcast with Derek Sivers and one thing Derek said stuck with me:

Don’t be a donkey.

Derek Sivers

He said it in the context of a story about a donkey that stands between a bowl of food and bowl of water. The donkey can’t decide whether to eat first or drink first. Eventually the donkey collapses from both hunger and thirst.

If the donkey had acted in serial (first food, then water for example) rather than being stuck trying to act in parallel (both at the same time) it would have been fine and accomplished both. Instead it accomplished neither.

One thing at a time.

One foot in front of the other.

There are lots of ways to say this. And, yet, so hard to remember and harder still to implement.