Ever feel like your brain is being pulled in a dozen different directions? You’re juggling browser tabs, conversations, and a to-do list that never seems to shrink. If you feel scattered and unproductive, there’s a simple concept that can help you get back on track. It’s called WIP-ONE, and it’s your key to getting more done with less stress.
WIP stands for “Work in Progress,” and WIP-ONE means having only one task in progress at a time. It’s the practice of single-tasking. Instead of trying to do a little bit of everything at once, you give one task your full attention from its start to its finish. It’s about deciding, “I am going to do this one thing right now, and nothing else.”
This idea isn’t new. The most effective methods for managing work, like Kanban, Scrum, and Lean, all emphasize the importance of limiting your Work in Progress. They all recognize a simple truth: the less you’re trying to manage at once, the more you actually finish.
Here’s how each framework specifically promotes focus:
Kanban is built around visualizing workflow and using explicit WIP limits. By setting a maximum number of tasks allowed in any single stage of the process, Kanban forces the team to focus on completing existing work before starting new work. This prevents bottlenecks and creates a smooth, predictable flow.
Scrum achieves focus through time-boxed Sprints. During a Sprint, the team commits to a specific goal and works from a fixed Sprint Backlog. This structure is designed to protect the team from changing priorities and outside distractions, allowing them to concentrate fully on delivering a valuable increment of work.
Lean thinking centers on maximizing customer value by systematically eliminating waste. From a Lean perspective, anything that doesn’t add value—including unfinished work and the context switching required to manage it—is considered a form of waste, or “Muda”. Lean actively promotes creating continuous flow by processing work in smaller batches, ideally one piece at a time (often called “one-piece flow”), because it is the most efficient way to deliver value without unnecessary delays or interruptions.
The main reason for this is to avoid context switching. Every time you jump from one task to another, your brain needs time to adjust. It has to load a new set of information and goals. This constant shifting is tiring and inefficient. According to the “No Task Left Behind?” Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work study, it can take an average of 25 minutes to get back on track after being interrupted. By focusing on one thing, you allow your brain to work deeply and perform at its best, leading to higher-quality results.
Words of Wisdom from the Focused Ones
Many successful people have understood the importance of deep focus.
Bruce Lee once said, “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus." He also famously declared, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
Bill Gates put it simply: “Only through focus can you do world-class things, no matter how capable you are."
Steve Jobs explained focus as a form of elimination: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But… it means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are."
Inventor Alexander Graham Bell used a powerful image to describe it: “Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus."
Your Focus Toolkit: Building the Habit
The most famous is the Pomodoro Technique, which turns your workday into a series of short, focused sprints. The method is simple: you choose a single task, set a timer for 25 minutes, and work on that task with zero interruptions until the timer rings. When it does, you take a mandatory 5-minute break to step away and clear your head. After completing four of these “Pomodoro” sessions, you take a longer break of 15-30 minutes. This rhythm prevents burnout and trains your brain to enter a state of deep concentration in short, manageable bursts.
Another powerful method is Timeboxing. With this technique, you decide in advance how much time you’ll dedicate to a specific task and block that time out in your calendar. For example, you might create a 90-minute “timebox” to write a report. During that 90-minute window, that is your only priority. This approach works because it forces a sense of urgency and prevents tasks from expanding to fill whatever time is available (a phenomenon known as Parkinson’s Law). It turns an open-ended task like “work on the report” into a finite mission: “make as much progress as possible on the report in the next 90 minutes.”
A related concept is scheduling Deep Work sessions, a term defined and popularized by author Cal Newport in his book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. This involves treating your focus time like a critical appointment. You block off 1 to 4-hour periods in your calendar for distraction-free work on your most demanding tasks. During a Deep Work session, you turn off all notifications, close unnecessary tabs, and make it clear to others that you are unavailable. By creating a fortress of solitude around your most important work, you allow yourself to achieve a state of high-level cognitive performance that’s impossible to reach when constantly switching contexts.
Less focus = more stress
The stress from constantly switching tasks is real. Research on task switching has shown that it can reduce productivity by up to 40% and increase mental fatigue through what’s known as switching costs. This effect is largely due to what researchers call attention residue, where your brain is still partially focused on the previous task, making the new one more draining. Complementing this, the study “The Cost of Interrupted Work: More Speed and Stress” found that while people compensate for interruptions by working faster, they experience significantly more stress, frustration, and pressure.
Focus: A Gift for Some, a Skill for All
For some neurodivergent individuals, including autistic and ADHD people, intense focus can come more naturally. This state is often called hyperfocus, a deep and sustained concentration that can make distractions fade away. In this context, what is sometimes labeled as cognitive rigidity—a difficulty in switching tasks—can become a powerful asset. As described in articles from ADDitude Magazine, when harnessed correctly, hyperfocus can feel like a “superpower” for productivity and creativity. While this trait isn’t exclusive, everyone can learn techniques to improve their own ability to concentrate.
So, I invite you to try an experiment. For just one day, or even just one hour, embrace WIP-ONE. Pick your most important task and give it your full, undivided attention. See how it feels to quiet the noise and truly connect with your work. You might just unlock a more effective and peaceful way of getting things done.
