Polar Bears and Human Productivity

The polar bear focuses on only one prey at a time and ignores it if there is another opportunity. Following the same principle, humans were also taught for centuries to “do one thing at a time”. But today’s world is no longer a jungle where walking in one direction is enough.

Interestingly, science says Multitasking is often ineffective because the brain cannot do two things at a time with full attention. But what we are talking about here is not multitasking but multi-projecting, that is, working on more than one “project” in different directions at the same time, but giving each one separate time, energy, and focus, just like a farmer simultaneously prepares the field, sows seeds, and keeps the preparation for the next season in mind. This is not scattered work, but smart organization, which science calls cognitive compartmentalization.

Multi-Projecting doesn’t mean you’re doing everything at once, but rather that you have multiple paths and multiple goals and you’re pursuing them all with different amounts of time, energy, and strategy.

This is how the world’s great people got ahead.

They didn’t stop at just one profession, one skill, or one opportunity — they made their presence felt on multiple fronts simultaneously.

When one project got delayed, another one got underway. When one door closed, another one had already opened.
This is not the age of polar bear thinking.

This is a world where success comes to those who don’t limit themselves to a single introduction.

If you want, you can be a student, a skilled worker, an earner, and an experiential learner all at the same time. The only condition is that you don’t divide the effort, but rather expand its directions.