Compartmentalization Skills
School Work…Family…Sleep…Socialization…Farbrengens…Downtime…
How do you deal with all these things, all at once?
The answer is compartmentalization.
Put simply, it’s how our minds deal with conflicting internal standpoints simultaneously.
Some examples would be:
A mother who leaves her office, and refuses to think about work for the rest of the evening so she can focus on and enjoy her time with the family;
The ability to put your phone away during meal times;
Focusing on a conversation with one friend and not getting distracted by other things happening on your phone, etc.
Coping strategies are short-term solutions, and they have positive and negative aspects. You want to compartmentalize, but not push other things away completely. Everything deserves attention. Just not all at once.
Here is a five-step system for dealing with managing and juggling a schedule:
Compartmentalize it. Isolate the one thing you are currently doing from all the other responsibilities you have.
Apply extreme focus on each compartment, but only for a set period of time.
Move forward in incremental steps. And once you see progress…
Close the compartment and open the next.
Say “no” to things that don’t deserve a compartment.
Here’s a visual for compartmentalization:
Pretend as if everything you’re dealing with in your life is a room where you have to walk in and solve an equation on a white board. You have a countdown clock with less than an hour to get the problem solved. There are different filing cabinets in the room with all sorts of different labels: School Work…Family…Sleep…Socialization…Farbrengens…Downtime…
Only open ONE cabinet at a time. The cabinet that will help you solve the equation on the board. Once completed, close the cabinet, and only then, move on to the next equation and cabinet.
Your ability to compartmentalize, prioritize, and focus enough time on each area in order to make incremental progress towards a conclusion will be your most important skill-set to achieve significant success.
Open, focus, and then close the compartment.
