Don't sprint, run a marathon

I've been quite busy recently. Moving back to live with my parents, preparing for the decoration of the new house, picking up some new curriculum, running to keep fit and doing some routine daily study. Meanwhile, one of our HK team members left so the schedule becomes even tight. Sometimes I feel I'm drown and overwhelmed in all these endless tasks. Something is not going right, and I can feel it.

It reminds me of the book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" which I read recently. The author shared one of his own experience. When he was young, he co-author a book with a team of statisticians and scientists. Before they went further, once he asked one of the team members if he had the knowledge how long this task would last and how was the success rate if studying the similar cases. The answer he got was 40% for the success rate and at least the work would take 7 years. However this statistics means nothing to the whole team. Every one thought they would be different even though they're statisticians. At last, it took them 10 years to complete the task which was far beyond their forecast.

It was the optimism they hold that made them neglect the negative information. And it never occurred to them that the trivial family issues will make them stumbled when they were in the initial phase.

For myself, the same situation occurred. I never thought that so many new matters occurred to me all sudden when I made the decision to accept all the tasks. So they accumulated one by one and finally I don't think I can handle them well with a full-time job.

What I can do now? It will not take me quite far if I divided my time evenly into all these arrangements. I need to figure out what's more important to me at the moment and do the minus. Every step you take will count, but it's also important to keep the pace.

Don't sprint, run a marathon.