I spend a lot of time in the productivity space. Honestly, I’m kind of a nerd about it.

I get dozens of email newsletters (some of which I actually read!). I’ve listen to a large number of podcasts about productivity. And I’ve got books. Boy, oh boy, do I have productivity books!

The hard part is there are so many opinions, and they often conflict in fundamental ways. Eat That Frog exhorts you to do the hardest thing of the day first, while there are lots of other folks who advocate starting slowly and working up to the tough stuff. Essentially for every idea, there is an equally interesting and valid idea that’s exactly the opposite.

But there’s one area that does seem to bring productivity people together: They almost universally hate New Year’s Resolutions!

Sure, the reasoning is entirely different. They come to the conclusion from a number of different angles. But there are very few people in the productivity space who actually recommend that you set New Year’s Resolutions. Some of them skirt the issue by playing semantic games. “Set annual targets”, set “yearly goals”, come up with a “theme for the year”. Those are really just different ways of saying the same thing as a New Year’s Resolution. Yet ask the authors and podcasters and they vehemently defend their semantic trickery.

While I’m not buying it, apparently I’m a lone wolf. There are loads of people buying into the semantics, and lots who are cashing inon the trend.

As the odd man out, I’m OK with resolutions. I don’t care if you prefer to call them something else. The words aren’t what matters. It’s the thought that counts. And even more…the actions associated with the thought. Making a resolution and then not changing how you act is a waste of your time. You’ll just be wishing for a different result with nothing to back it up.

The only real change can come from action. You either add something to your life or you remove something from your life. You do something or you stop doing something. It’s not rocket science!

The issue most productivity folks have with the New Year’s Resolutions is when you look at them, they’re usually huge, lifestyle modifications. And there are usually a bunch of them. It’s not uncommon to see somebody with resolutions to eat healthier, exercise more, spend more time with the family, lose weight, save more money, spend less, learn a new skill, and read more. Just perusing the list makes me tired. What’s even more damaging is that having multiple resolutions means the energy to address them is divided.

You can’t focus on more than one thing at a time. Have you ever walked into something while you were texting? That’s the problem in a nutshell. You can’t give all of your attention to texting while walking on auto-pilot. You’ll trip up.

The same goes for changes in your life. The habits you’ve built up, whether they’re good for you or not, have been created over a long time. They’re almost part of your autonomic system. You do most of them without thinking. But to break those habits, you’ve actually got to focus on the behavioral change. The change won’t happen by itself. The problem arises when you’re trying to change several things at once. You’ve only got so much energy and focus you can expend on something new. I mean it’s not like life just stops and lets you focus on lots of new stuff. You’re still going to have kids, a dog, a ringing telephone, a spouse. Everything that’s already in your life is begging for attention. Just as I wrote that the buzzer on the dryer went off…to prove my point! Sure, I can leave those clothes sitting in there. But if I do, they’ll get wrinkled. Then I’ll either have to iron them (unlikely), wear them wrinkled (likely), or run them through the washer & dryer again (omg, don’t tell my wife…but that’s the most common solution).

My point is, if I don’t focus on the clothes, something bad will happen. But if I focus on the clothes, I can’t be here writing this post. No matter how much we try to fool ourselves, we just can’t multi-task. We can switch from task to task, but we can’t really do two things at once.

It’s painfully obvious in the walking and texting example. It gets a bit less obvious when you start to think about things you do around the house. Talking to the kids and making dinner? Happens all the time…but are you really doing a good job of either. Ever had that situation where you can’t remember if you added a spice to the pot? Ever said “uh-huh” and agreed to something you wouldn’t have if you had been paying attention?

When we get even farther afield and start to think about habit building or habit breaking it’s even harder to recognize that we can’t focus on multiple things at one.

I know, I know. You’re the exception. You’re practically super-human and can do anything. Heck, your Mom said you can be anything. Guess what, I got the same Mom cheerleading and I love to think I’m the exception. But we can’t all be the exception. What if we really are just like everybody else? What if we really can only put in so much energy and focus to make changes in life. Could that the be reason so many New Years Resolutions fail?

Think about it. If you finally have succeeded in building up the habit of going to the gym several times a week, when is the one time of the year when you actively think about not going? Right after New Years Day…am I right? The gym is jam-packed with people who don’t know what they are doing. But we both know, if you give it two or three weeks, things will be back to normal. All those new gym rats will be back on the couch and it’ll be the same old faces sweating on the elliptical right next to you. The vast majority of folks who resolved to work out more will have stopped. Not only that, they’ll also be back to eating the way they always have, their weight will be the same, and they won’t have an extra nickel in the bank.

Resolutions are hard. It doesn’t matter if you make them on January 1st, your birthday, or whenever…resolutions mean change. And we all know change is hard.

A few years ago I heard this idea that you should think about making one change every month.