How to Find Focus(thesephist.com)
thesephist.com
How to Find Focus
https://thesephist.com/posts/focus/
37 comments
>This is why a UBI can raise the national IQ level, reduce stress, improve public health AND make us more productive and make better choices.
>A person working overtime at McDonalds to make ends meet is not benefitting society as much as a person using some of that time on things not valued immediately by the market, such as spending time raising their kids, learning science, contributing to open source software or wikipedia etc.
I've come to believe that some types of work constitute an intellectual travesty on a societal scale, precisely for those reasons.
People need way more unstructured time than what they're currently getting.
>A person working overtime at McDonalds to make ends meet is not benefitting society as much as a person using some of that time on things not valued immediately by the market, such as spending time raising their kids, learning science, contributing to open source software or wikipedia etc.
I've come to believe that some types of work constitute an intellectual travesty on a societal scale, precisely for those reasons.
People need way more unstructured time than what they're currently getting.
Beyond individual focus, the divergence -> convergence cycle also works well for getting group alignment and buy-in during project planning.
> To earn confidence (and the focus that comes with it), we need to explore our options, try things out, open all the different doors in front of us, and then say, “this is the best option for me, so I’m going to do this.”
Build team member confidence and focus by brainstorming a full list of pain points and possible projects then discuss those ideas within the context of given goals and constraints.
> Paradoxically, this means attaining focus requires us to become less focused for a little bit, exploring our options enough to develop some conviction [...]
This is the hurdle because there are usually some teammates who want to dive straight in and start "working on things".
It takes practice and effort to drive the process and avoid getting stuck in the brainstorming phase but the resulting team buy-in, ownership, conviction, etc... are worth it. People feel heard, involved in decision-making, and they understand why they are working on a specific project.
Building this alignment and confidence at the start helps to avoid the situation the author describes:
> If your choice isn’t based on the confidence you have in that decision, your focus ends up pulled apart by the worry that you’ve missed out on the roads not taken.
> To earn confidence (and the focus that comes with it), we need to explore our options, try things out, open all the different doors in front of us, and then say, “this is the best option for me, so I’m going to do this.”
Build team member confidence and focus by brainstorming a full list of pain points and possible projects then discuss those ideas within the context of given goals and constraints.
> Paradoxically, this means attaining focus requires us to become less focused for a little bit, exploring our options enough to develop some conviction [...]
This is the hurdle because there are usually some teammates who want to dive straight in and start "working on things".
It takes practice and effort to drive the process and avoid getting stuck in the brainstorming phase but the resulting team buy-in, ownership, conviction, etc... are worth it. People feel heard, involved in decision-making, and they understand why they are working on a specific project.
Building this alignment and confidence at the start helps to avoid the situation the author describes:
> If your choice isn’t based on the confidence you have in that decision, your focus ends up pulled apart by the worry that you’ve missed out on the roads not taken.
A team that believes it is working on the right things > a team working on the right things > a team working on things.
Sometimes it's okay to feel directionless. What if you're simply not motivated or inspired? It annoys me when people complain about writers block. The block is there for a reason. It means you are uninspired and need to look at things from new perspectives, or think outside the box, however cliche that phrase sounds.
I think the author has this really well put. They describe how they find confidence to execute their ideas in a sustainable way that works for them. This isn’t a manifesto or a telling of “the one true way” it’s just a humble succinct writing about what focus means to them. I love it.
Very interesting article.
Focus, especially in our modern society, is a quality/trait that is quite difficult to re discover as adults.I say re discover because I "think" children have more focus than adults.
My hypothesis is that we lose focus as we get older due to the amount of interests and setbacks we get as we grow out of childhood.
What I am trying to say is that we should not find focus but choose our goal/interest and just focus on it.
An interesting article on focus and achieving personal goals is https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/set-your-personal-go...
Focus, especially in our modern society, is a quality/trait that is quite difficult to re discover as adults.I say re discover because I "think" children have more focus than adults.
My hypothesis is that we lose focus as we get older due to the amount of interests and setbacks we get as we grow out of childhood.
What I am trying to say is that we should not find focus but choose our goal/interest and just focus on it.
An interesting article on focus and achieving personal goals is https://leveragethoughts.substack.com/p/set-your-personal-go...
How does mind stop switches hopping between ideas - each one of them have their potential but chasing them simultaneously reaches you nowhere? Any insights/ thoughts would be appreciated.
I also feel more focused today, but I don’t think it’s because of any of the platitudes in this post. I think it is actually because of circumstance and has nothing to do with conviction, divergence, convergence or anything else in the article.
I think it’s more like the feeling you get in times of real and potentially catastrophic danger, when the brain slows down time perception and you focus in on the situation and how to survive.
I once felt this when I accidentally backed into and fell about 25 feet into a 50-foot drainage pit. As I fell I had the time to map out the pit in my mind and think about what I suspected, but didn’t know, could be parts of its construction like drainage pipes and other dangers to my falling body. Based on those thoughts I decided to curl my legs underneath me and pitch my upper body forward in hopes that I could land with my lower body first instead of headfirst. My brain also had time to complete one of those “life flashes before your eyes” compilations and I felt an upswell of emotion around images of me and my family, especially my mother for some reason. I hit the water mostly feet first and made my way back to the surface, then swam to a safety ladder as my manager yelled at me to get the hell out of the pit immediately. He later told me that the pit was indeed lined with drainage pipes and that I was incredibly lucky not to have landed on any of them.
I have no recollection of any of the actual physical aspects of the fall and I didn’t immediately thereafter either. All of my focus was inward, and - impossibly - I had enough time to both think about how to fall the best way and to reminisce about the life I might soon be leaving. It was only because of the circumstances that was possible, and I’ve only felt similarly during other high stakes situations like a car accident since then.
It seems like an immediate and physiological response to danger and the extreme narrowing of potential futures (life or death), and one that countless others have detailed throughout history. The end result is an incredibly narrow focus that completely changes everything from perception of time to clarity of thought and emotion. I think the same is true on a more macro scale of life, where it’s much easier to focus when potential futures are limited.
Right now my potential futures (and the related decisions, thoughts, anxieties, workload, etc associated with each of them) have been artificially limited because of the pandemic. I have vastly fewer options in almost every area of life as a result. And with the removal of all those extraneous potential areas of focus or distraction I end up with a surplus of focus for whatever I’m working on or toward. I’ve been working toward the same exact things and nothing has changed to make them more of the “right” things to focus on, and yet my focus is undeniably much stronger because of a lack of other things to focus on.
When the horizons inevitably expand I expect to be in the same position as I was before, looking and mostly failing to find focus for what I need to work on. I don’t plan on casting about for something else that will hold my focus, but instead I hope to bring this newfound perspective to bear and try to somehow artificially narrow my options so that I can bring my focus back. If anyone has any suggestions for just how to do so I’d love to hear them.
I think it’s more like the feeling you get in times of real and potentially catastrophic danger, when the brain slows down time perception and you focus in on the situation and how to survive.
I once felt this when I accidentally backed into and fell about 25 feet into a 50-foot drainage pit. As I fell I had the time to map out the pit in my mind and think about what I suspected, but didn’t know, could be parts of its construction like drainage pipes and other dangers to my falling body. Based on those thoughts I decided to curl my legs underneath me and pitch my upper body forward in hopes that I could land with my lower body first instead of headfirst. My brain also had time to complete one of those “life flashes before your eyes” compilations and I felt an upswell of emotion around images of me and my family, especially my mother for some reason. I hit the water mostly feet first and made my way back to the surface, then swam to a safety ladder as my manager yelled at me to get the hell out of the pit immediately. He later told me that the pit was indeed lined with drainage pipes and that I was incredibly lucky not to have landed on any of them.
I have no recollection of any of the actual physical aspects of the fall and I didn’t immediately thereafter either. All of my focus was inward, and - impossibly - I had enough time to both think about how to fall the best way and to reminisce about the life I might soon be leaving. It was only because of the circumstances that was possible, and I’ve only felt similarly during other high stakes situations like a car accident since then.
It seems like an immediate and physiological response to danger and the extreme narrowing of potential futures (life or death), and one that countless others have detailed throughout history. The end result is an incredibly narrow focus that completely changes everything from perception of time to clarity of thought and emotion. I think the same is true on a more macro scale of life, where it’s much easier to focus when potential futures are limited.
Right now my potential futures (and the related decisions, thoughts, anxieties, workload, etc associated with each of them) have been artificially limited because of the pandemic. I have vastly fewer options in almost every area of life as a result. And with the removal of all those extraneous potential areas of focus or distraction I end up with a surplus of focus for whatever I’m working on or toward. I’ve been working toward the same exact things and nothing has changed to make them more of the “right” things to focus on, and yet my focus is undeniably much stronger because of a lack of other things to focus on.
When the horizons inevitably expand I expect to be in the same position as I was before, looking and mostly failing to find focus for what I need to work on. I don’t plan on casting about for something else that will hold my focus, but instead I hope to bring this newfound perspective to bear and try to somehow artificially narrow my options so that I can bring my focus back. If anyone has any suggestions for just how to do so I’d love to hear them.
I like the concept of divergent and convergent phases of life. This reminds me of a professor I had that said the arc of knowledge went "from thin to thick, then from thick to thin." Meaning that you started a course with no knowledge, filled your brain, then needed to put this all down on one piece of paper ("cheat sheet"). This stuck with me.
That rings true for me, but with a slight adjustment; once you have fill your brain with knowledge you can then condense it to the simplest model, from which the rest can be derived if needed again.
On my cameras I usually turn the lens and the image adjusts
This hit different. Exactly what I needed to read today
The part that really separated this from previous 'say no' to stay focused articles is the fact that you need to evaluate multiple options before you know what to focus on. Figuring out the switching point of a diverging path to a converging one is probably unique to each person.
A counterargument: losing focus just means that you are encountering difficulty, boredom or frustration in your current project. Losing focus does not mean you should start exploring other options because you haven't found the best fit yet; other projects that seem shiny now will inevitably go through their own difficult periods.
If you look for greener pastures whenever your organic focus starts to wane, you'll never make it through the challenges that create real value.
If you look for greener pastures whenever your organic focus starts to wane, you'll never make it through the challenges that create real value.
I agree that loss of focus can put someone in the danger zone of looking for other options without really resolving the underlying problem.
However, I think the article is implying that deep thinking about your values and interests when you step back can help keep you from switching focus for shallow reasons. Perhaps you re-engage with a renewed sense of purpose. However, if you do switch after deep thinking, you'll hopefully be more resistant to further randomization.
However, I think the article is implying that deep thinking about your values and interests when you step back can help keep you from switching focus for shallow reasons. Perhaps you re-engage with a renewed sense of purpose. However, if you do switch after deep thinking, you'll hopefully be more resistant to further randomization.
This seems an awful lot of text for being basically identical to the advice I get from older relatives, ehich are detached from the current reality: "Just power through it."
I don't think this is a counterargument. I think he's saying that once you decide to do something, you'll stick with it if it matches your values and the learnings from your journey so far.
This resonates with me strongly. As someone who's started and stopped a lot of projects, I've often been afraid I would never settle on one thing. But now, even though I'm in a difficult phase with it, I feel more committed than ever to my current project.
I think this is in line with the post: I spent a lot of time in a "divergent phase", exploring options and testing possibilities (multiple smaller projects). Now, I'm in a "convergent phase" and focusing on just one thing for multiple years, even though it's hard.
This resonates with me strongly. As someone who's started and stopped a lot of projects, I've often been afraid I would never settle on one thing. But now, even though I'm in a difficult phase with it, I feel more committed than ever to my current project.
I think this is in line with the post: I spent a lot of time in a "divergent phase", exploring options and testing possibilities (multiple smaller projects). Now, I'm in a "convergent phase" and focusing on just one thing for multiple years, even though it's hard.
This reminded me of the following exercise, which I hopefully recite correctly. I’ve first heard it in a podcast with the monk Anselm Grün, who counsels burned out managers in Germany:
Think about what you could do for hours as a child. What kept you so interested that time just passed by?
Then examine what wish, image or interest underlies these activities. You will often find clear links to your current occupation.
The assumption underlying this is that our interests are unique and not random, and that we have to find or rediscover them as they tend to get overshadowed over time, which removes us from feelings of flow and focus.
Think about what you could do for hours as a child. What kept you so interested that time just passed by?
Then examine what wish, image or interest underlies these activities. You will often find clear links to your current occupation.
The assumption underlying this is that our interests are unique and not random, and that we have to find or rediscover them as they tend to get overshadowed over time, which removes us from feelings of flow and focus.
This is the idea developed in A Lazy Man's Guide to Success by Bill O'Hanlon. It's a very short book, I highly recommend it. It was eye-opening to me.
Free copy of the book is distributed by the author online for anyone interested: http://www.billohanlon.com/LazyMan/files/lazy-man-e-book.pdf
This is actually good advise! Could you link the podcast episode?
I've had a hard time with some of my hobby projects, but now I think my approach could be very different. The ones I've completed have sort of fit the notion 'Im doing it because I want to do it', not because I have to do it.
He briefly discusses it in this episode of „Das philosophische Radio“:
https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/wdr-5-das-philosophisc...
I went on listening to other interviews with him on Apple Podcasts where he touches this and other ideas, but eventually got one of his books that is specifically about burnout (“Vom Burnout zum Flow”) as an audiobook, where he describes such imagery exercises in detail. I also liked how he chooses his words very carefully.
It’s all in german however, a lot of his books have not been translated yet. He often mentions that C.G. Jung influenced him, but I’m not familiar with his writings at all.
I went on listening to other interviews with him on Apple Podcasts where he touches this and other ideas, but eventually got one of his books that is specifically about burnout (“Vom Burnout zum Flow”) as an audiobook, where he describes such imagery exercises in detail. I also liked how he chooses his words very carefully.
It’s all in german however, a lot of his books have not been translated yet. He often mentions that C.G. Jung influenced him, but I’m not familiar with his writings at all.
Welp, I don't know German at all sadly!
The idea you mentioned in the original comment is certainly helpful though. Something to chew on, so thanks anyway :)
Thanks for the recommendation! That podcast episode sounds interesting - I'm always looking for new German shows to add to my podcast queue :)
This sounds similar to exercises in the book "Play it Away" by Charlie Hoehn; a book on recovering from burnout via play. In that book you look back and create a "play history" to find common elements for your recovery approach.
Doesn’t a monk have better things to do than to counsel burnt out professionals?
Look up “Seelsorge” (not sure whether “pastoral care” is the equivalent in English).
Hey HN, OP here.
I wrote this sort-of on a whim after having lots of conversations with friends/coworkers about motivation and focus. One point where I felt I've grown this year both personally and professionally was that I'm more confident that the things I'm spending time to work on are the "right" ones for me, and I spent some time musing internally about how I got to that point, and how to explain that process.
Glad it resonates with others :)
I wrote this sort-of on a whim after having lots of conversations with friends/coworkers about motivation and focus. One point where I felt I've grown this year both personally and professionally was that I'm more confident that the things I'm spending time to work on are the "right" ones for me, and I spent some time musing internally about how I got to that point, and how to explain that process.
Glad it resonates with others :)
I think your right on with the dynamic oscillation between convergence and divergence. All real oscillatory systems exhibit precisely that behaviour, especially pronounced during step changes.
Also, it gives new meanings to the term ‘on the same wavelength’.
Also, it gives new meanings to the term ‘on the same wavelength’.
Great piece.
It took me four years of divergent exploration to go from program management in Big Tech to becoming a solo woodworker, and was worth every diversion along the way.
It took me four years of divergent exploration to go from program management in Big Tech to becoming a solo woodworker, and was worth every diversion along the way.
OT, but I have to remark: this is an example of a pleasantly fast and writing-focused web page.
Thanks! I take care to keep the pages minimal and fast. Everything (from the HTML to the CSS) is hand-rolled by me. [Except analytics] there's only JS for the minimal email sign up that only loads on the main homepage, and it gracefully degrades without JavaScript. Everything else is static.
It's a point of pride, glad you noticed :)
It's a point of pride, glad you noticed :)
Do you have any notes or advice for someone who wants to build a similar blog? Every time I try I get bogged down in the details (Wordpress is painful and buggy...how to tag these articles and make a tag cloud... how to get people to sign up using some Mailchimp code....) and I can never get it off the ground.
I definitely don't have the best or ideal setup, but I keep things pretty simple. My blog's "CMS" under the hood is a single flat directory of markdown files. Each post is a markdown file, and I use Hugo (gohugo.io) to build a static site out of it and statically host it. I don't really use tags or hierarchies, even though Hugo supports it.
My site isn't open source (b/c unfinished content) but in case it's helpful, it's based on this Hugo template project - https://github.com/thesephist/carlisle
Newsletter wise, I can't be super helpful because I roll my own infra through Mailgun, but I think in general the simpler the better, especially in the beginning. Substack seems popular these days.
My site isn't open source (b/c unfinished content) but in case it's helpful, it's based on this Hugo template project - https://github.com/thesephist/carlisle
Newsletter wise, I can't be super helpful because I roll my own infra through Mailgun, but I think in general the simpler the better, especially in the beginning. Substack seems popular these days.
Great post, I'm personally someone who feels that they struggle with focus sometimes and this post makes me cognizant of some of those underlying issues. That being said, I've noticed that when I do exercise in the morning (bike ride), it's much easier for me to stay focused.
How about chess?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25459731
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25459731
When you don’t have enough money to take care of all your needs for a long time, for example, you wind up doing things others ask you to do. And you have very little control over how much of your time and attention that will take up. You are forced to multitask and your mind is distracted.
Not only that, but your switching costs are very high. Like a person with a small poker stack, you can’t afford to take regular-size risks, only tiny risks. Any bad risk can set you back.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/economy/making-sense/analys...
This is why a UBI can raise the national IQ level, reduce stress, improve public health AND make us more productive and make better choices.
That is also why limited liability for entrepreners in USA is a great thing.
A person working overtime at McDonalds to make ends meet is not benefitting society as much as a person using some of that time on things not valued immediately by the market, such as spending time raising their kids, learning science, contributing to open source software or wikipedia etc. Their job will be gradually automated anyway, and we as a society will try to slow that process down because many consider wages to be the only “moral” way to get money to the people.
At the other extreme, having “f u money” you can say no to lots of things.
The “costly signal” that identifies a successful person with many options in a given area, is that — unlike the one still starting out or scrambling — they pass up perfectly good opportunities and are instead focused on actively avoid potentially inconvenient opportunities. While a person who is just trying to “make it” will have the opposite approach. They will pursue a lot of false negatives.