Want to succeed at something? Go all-in.

by | Jul 15, 2013 | Focus

Takeaway: A funny thing happens when you throw all of your weight at something: you become completely absorbed with what you’re doing, and you continually try to get better at it.

Estimated Reading Time: 1 minute, 33s.

Going All-In

Since May 1st, I’ve put all of my focus, time, attention, and energy into A Year of Productivity, and that has led me to the belief that if you really, truly care about succeeding at something, you should go all-in on it. Every single day, because I need to fill my time with something, I find ways to make this project better. I think of crazy productivity experiments to devote my time to, topics to write about, people to interview, new stats to capture, ways to improve my site’s ranking in Google results, and more. I really don’t have a choice but to work my ass off every day and do this project the best I can, because that’s simply what I do now that I’ve gone all-in.

Cards and poker chips.Since May, A Year of Productivity has received over 25,000 hits from almost 9,000 different people around the world, and has even been featured in a number of great news outlets, with more on the way. I don’t say this to brag, I say this because I want to highlight the difference throwing a lot more of yourself at a project makes.

If I hadn’t went all-in and devoted everything to this project, half of the content on here wouldn’t exist, I’d be straddling a career and this website would be a side project, and I wouldn’t have the passion, motivation, or drive that I have now.

I think if you want to succeed at something, you should put a lot more time, focus, and energy into it. And if possible, go all-in on it.1

Whether you care the most about your career, business, website, or a relationship, when you go all-in on something you care about (or go a lot more ‘in’ than you are now), I think success usually follows.

What could you go all-in on right now? Or what could you be throwing more of yourself at than you already are?


  1. Oh, and of course religiously defend your time and attention from low-leverage bullshit, and tackle as much high-leverage activities as possible. 

Written by Chris Bailey

Chris Bailey has written hundreds of articles on the subject of productivity and is the author of three books: How to Calm Your Mind, Hyperfocus, and The Productivity Project. His books have been published in more than 40 languages. Chris writes about productivity on this site and speaks to organizations around the globe on how they can become more productive without hating the process.

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