Nate Tilley shares Warren Buffett's method: list 25 goals, keep your top 5, and actively avoid the other 20. Chasing too many things dilutes your focus and keeps you from achieving what actually matters.
It is far more important to work on the right things than it is to work for long periods of time. There's a story of Warren Buffett where he approaches his pilot who's been working with him for 10 years, and he wants to discuss his career goals with him. He sits him down and he says, what is it that you want to achieve over the next 10 years? He has him write a list of the top 25 things that he wants to achieve, and then he says, now I want you to break it down into the five things that are the most important to you beyond all other things. And he finally gets it down to two lists. That other list of 20 items is your list of things to avoid at absolutely all costs. There is no world that exists where you're going to be able to get to all of those things. All the time and energy that you think that you're going to spend bleeding out to those other 20 items is actually going to stop you from hitting the original five in the first place.
